Trio Folk Group Research Paper

The group Peter, Paul, and Mary were a trio folk group that was created in the early 1960s in Greenwich Village. Their concerts and songs brought about massive change, and especially brought the issues of race in America in the 1960s front and center to the media and to small towns and suburbs of white America. They helped raise awareness and further social justice causes across the globe.
The band consisting of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone (Noel) Paul Stookey and alto Mary Travers. The group wrote some of their own music, but became famous for singing covers of other rock and folk songs. The group came out of the Greenwich Village crowd; they were young, serious, and ready to fight and help others stand up for what they believed in. The trio

Peter Yarrow said he was influenced by old jazz singers as a whole, but Mary Travers mentioned several different artist she considered her influencers. These included the famous folk singer and key figure in the folk movement Woody Guthrie; whose song This Land is your Land, the trio covered later on in the 1960s, and was greeted with much commercial success. The two other key performers who Travers named as an influence to her were Pete Seeger and the Greenwich Village Folk group The Weavers. The group was the epitome and image of pure, clean, peace-loving Folk artists. Pete Seeger became a key influence in the shaping of this band. His songs showed up in many of this trios albums. He helped pave the way to the revial of folk int he 1960s, ad he provided soem of the most memorabl matirel that P, P, & Mary ever

As a result, their music taste changed as well. Pop sometimes seemed superficial, fake, even very shallow at times to this sceptical generation. These college students and young people wanted something more. They didn’t want to be their parents, and they didn’t want their parents music either. What this new generation wanted, was something real, raw and authentic. The music of the folk movement in the 1960s provided true perfect place for the young person concerned about current events and their taste in music to mingle and combine, (Ruehl, Kim. “Folk Music and the Civil Rights Movement.”). When Peter, Paul, & Mary came into the music scene these young college students readily accepted this new folk group. While the civil right movement was in full swing, even more protests and sit ins were happening as a result of the Vietnam War America’s youth was fighting. The young generation of Americans were forced to be drafted into service, and many deemed a highly unnecessary and tragic war we wouldn’t win. These college students and young teens watched as their very friends, neighbors, and family was shipped off to fight in a hopeless meaningless war, sometimes to never come home, (Rubin, Trudy. “Peter, Paul and Mary Bring a Song for Peace to a Divided Israel.”.) P, P, & M covered the song haunting anti war song Where have all the flowers gone by Pete Seeger in the early sixties. This song described