I’ve always been a fan of Peter Paul and Mary. I once saw the trio in concert at the famous Musikfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I own their four-disc box set and a couple of their later LPs. I more recently played their live Christmas album over the holidays.
Then Peter Yarrow died of cancer at age 86 on Jan. 7. I resisted writing a tribute to him because of his past. That’s still true but his disgusting, criminal acts are bothering me too much to ignore them.
There was an extreme paradox between the public life Peter Yarrow led – and what he and his group meant to a multitude of noble social causes – compared to what went on behind the scenes. These contradictions compel me to say something about Yarrow because of the way media outlets reacted to his death.
Most older music fans – especially Baby Boomers – know how proudly Peter Paul and Mary marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for Civil Rights, for an end to nuclear disarmament, and for an end to the war in Vietnam. They were willing to be – and sometimes were – arrested in the name of their causes. That is admirable, of course, but my anger rises because Yarrow’s seemingly honorable public persona is completely undone by his private life. How could this man have the nerve to take a moral public stance on anything?
I only discovered that he’d was arrested for taking “immoral and improper liberties” with a teenaged girl when Insidehook’s Bonnie Stiernberg expanded on reporting from The Washington Post a few years ago.
“On Aug. 31, 1969, a 14-year-old girl named Barbara Winter and her sister went to meet Yarrow at his hotel. When they arrived at his door, he was nude,” Stiernberg wrote. “According to the Post, ‘Within minutes, she told police, Yarrow made her masturbate him until he ejaculated.’ Yarrow was convicted and sentenced to one-to-three years in prison, but he wound up only serving three months. On the day of his sentencing, he admitted to molesting Winter, saying, ‘I am deeply sorry. I have hurt myself deeply. I hurt my wife and the people who love me. It was the worst mistake I have ever made.’
“But Winter isn’t the only person who claims to have been molested by Yarrow as a child. On Feb. 24, 2021, a new lawsuit was filed in New York by a woman alleging that the ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ singer raped her when she was still a minor.
“The lawsuit claims that the girl ran away from her home in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1969 and traveled to New York, where Yarrow told her to meet him at a hotel, then raped her and bought her a plane ticket back to St. Paul the next morning.”
I wasn’t able to determine why, on his last day in office, the recently deceased Jimmy Carter granted Yarrow a full presidential pardon. It sounds very out of character for the late president.
What bothers me most is how many TV outlets, newspapers, websites and blogs pay tribute to Yarrow by mentioning his incredible musical legacy with Mary Travers and Noel Paul Stookey but then either minimize or fail to include a single word about Yarrow’s crimes. It’s a huge part of his biography.
David Muir, the anchor of ABC’s nightly news program, ended one of his broadcasts with the story of Yarrow’s death and film of Peter Paul and Mary performing. Muir also gave a brief rundown of their political activities, but he never mentioned the singer’s abuse or conviction. It made Yarrow look like a saint. You’ll never convince me that a news operation belonging to one of the major networks had no information about Yarrow’s illicit behavior in their archives.
I sympathize with many of the causes Peter Paul and Mary supported. Despite that, I hope reports that don’t mention Peter Yarrow’s awful indiscretions aren’t doing so in a deliberate attempt to whitewash his image on the grounds that his group subscribed to a political agenda shared by those media outlets. If it’s true, they have been participating in horribly irresponsible journalism.
Charlie Ricci maintains Bloggerhythms, where he talks about music, concerts, and a wide range of other musical topics. In August 2008, his site placed at No. 87 on a list of the Top 100 music-related blogs according to Alexa, a web ranking service. Contact Something Else! at [email protected].
I’ve always been a fan of Peter Paul and Mary. I once saw the trio in concert at the famous Musikfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I own their four-disc box set and a couple of their later LPs. I more recently played their live Christmas album over the holidays.
Then Peter Yarrow died of cancer at age 86 on Jan. 7. I resisted writing a tribute to him because of his past. That’s still true but his disgusting, criminal acts are bothering me too much to ignore them.
There was an extreme paradox between the public life Peter Yarrow led – and what he and his group meant to a multitude of noble social causes – compared to what went on behind the scenes. These contradictions compel me to say something about Yarrow because of the way media outlets reacted to his death.
Most older music fans – especially Baby Boomers – know how proudly Peter Paul and Mary marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for Civil Rights, for an end to nuclear disarmament, and for an end to the war in Vietnam. They were willing to be – and sometimes were – arrested in the name of their causes. That is admirable, of course, but my anger rises because Yarrow’s seemingly honorable public persona is completely undone by his private life. How could this man have the nerve to take a moral public stance on anything?
I only discovered that he’d was arrested for taking “immoral and improper liberties” with a teenaged girl when Insidehook’s Bonnie Stiernberg expanded on reporting from The Washington Post a few years ago.
“On Aug. 31, 1969, a 14-year-old girl named Barbara Winter and her sister went to meet Yarrow at his hotel. When they arrived at his door, he was nude,” Stiernberg wrote. “According to the Post, ‘Within minutes, she told police, Yarrow made her masturbate him until he ejaculated.’ Yarrow was convicted and sentenced to one-to-three years in prison, but he wound up only serving three months. On the day of his sentencing, he admitted to molesting Winter, saying, ‘I am deeply sorry. I have hurt myself deeply. I hurt my wife and the people who love me. It was the worst mistake I have ever made.’
“But Winter isn’t the only person who claims to have been molested by Yarrow as a child. On Feb. 24, 2021, a new lawsuit was filed in New York by a woman alleging that the ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ singer raped her when she was still a minor.
“The lawsuit claims that the girl ran away from her home in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1969 and traveled to New York, where Yarrow told her to meet him at a hotel, then raped her and bought her a plane ticket back to St. Paul the next morning.”
I wasn’t able to determine why, on his last day in office, the recently deceased Jimmy Carter granted Yarrow a full presidential pardon. It sounds very out of character for the late president.
What bothers me most is how many TV outlets, newspapers, websites and blogs pay tribute to Yarrow by mentioning his incredible musical legacy with Mary Travers and Noel Paul Stookey but then either minimize or fail to include a single word about Yarrow’s crimes. It’s a huge part of his biography.
David Muir, the anchor of ABC’s nightly news program, ended one of his broadcasts with the story of Yarrow’s death and film of Peter Paul and Mary performing. Muir also gave a brief rundown of their political activities, but he never mentioned the singer’s abuse or conviction. It made Yarrow look like a saint. You’ll never convince me that a news operation belonging to one of the major networks had no information about Yarrow’s illicit behavior in their archives.
I sympathize with many of the causes Peter Paul and Mary supported. Despite that, I hope reports that don’t mention Peter Yarrow’s awful indiscretions aren’t doing so in a deliberate attempt to whitewash his image on the grounds that his group subscribed to a political agenda shared by those media outlets. If it’s true, they have been participating in horribly irresponsible journalism.
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