Remembering Peter, Paul and Mary

I was in college when I first saw Peter, Paul and Mary perform live. Like everyone else in the audience, I was enthralled seeing them run onto the stage, listening to the amazing harmony of their voices, laughing at Noel Paul Stookey's comedy routines and, perhaps most memorably, watching Mary Travers's long blonde hair fly around like living poetry.

Some of this magic is recalled in Peter, Paul and Mary: Fifty Years in Music and Life (2015). Although Mary died six years before this photographic biography was published, it is written in first person plural, as if all three of them participated in the writing.

The book covers the folk trio's entire career, but the best part of the book, like the best part of their career, comes early. They tell how they found each other, how they rehearsed for long hours in Mary's tiny Greenwich Village apartment and how their act soon exploded, coming on the scene at the perfect time when folk music became mainstream. The first song they ever sang together — just to see how their voices blended — was Mary Had a Little Lamb.

Photographs occupy nearly every page, with the text used as filler around the edges. Some of these images, especially one taken by Annie Leibovitz taken late in their career, are stunning.

The latter half of the book mostly concerns the group's many progressive political and social causes. The book notes that despite their leftist views, which they never tried to hide, their fans included many people on the right and center of the spectrum. The book even includes a letter from a Warner Brothers Records executive who tells them how much he enjoys their music, while at the same time urging them to tone down their politics. The group was so popular they didn't have to listen to his advice.