Peter Yarrow, one-third of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died at age 86 after a yearslong battle with bladder cancer, according to The Associated Press. Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey, and Mary Travers formed a Grammy Award-winning group that produced hits like “Puff, the Magic Dragon” while blending music and social justice activism. They performed at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, and sang out against the Vietnam War. The group took a hiatus in 1970 to pursue solo careers, reuniting eight years later for a concert against nuclear power. Travers passed in 2009. Stookey, now the only living bandmate, said in a statement that Yarrow was his “creative, irrepressible, spontaneous and musical younger brother” who also provided him with “mature-beyond-his-years wisdom and inspiring guidance” like an older brother. While the band was on hiatus, Yarrow was convicted of “taking indecent liberties with a minor” after a 1969 incident in a D.C. hotel room with 14-year-old Barbara Winter. He spent three months in prison but was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1981.
