Farewell to Mary Travers, Who Never Gave Up

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

http://www.care2.com/causes/politics/blog/editors-prero... /

Mary Travers died on Wednesday, one in a dreadfully long line of notables who left us this summer. Of course they're all sad, but this one seems impossible. It's not that Peter, Paul and Mary were great entertainers (although they were), and it's not that Mary had a great voice (although she did.) It's not even that they helped to launch and maintain the great folk revival of the 60's. Nope. It's this:

Mary, and Peter, and Paul, were so integrated into the history of American activism that it's hard to think about those years with out them. Watch video of the 1963 March on Washington or dozens of other places where people marched for Civil Rights. Listen to them during the Vietnam War at marches and rallies, at McCarthy Campaign rallies ("The country needs a President, McCarthy you're the man!") and the 1968 Democratic Convention. Or at hundreds of rallies against war, dozens of Earth Days, and anywhere else where they were needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8U6Oh9uSY8

[oligarhy]

1. If I had a hammer....

Your songs touched many people "all over this land"

Thank you.

[Kahuna]

2. Puff, the Magic Dragon....

RIP, Mary.

[Taverner]

3. They were there since the beginning - the Free Speech Demonstrations in Berkeley

To today....

RIP Mary

[regnaD kciN]

4. In a way, it's far from "impossible"...

...especially since it had been well-known that she was suffering from cancer.

But it's particularly hard for those who not only shared their political activism, but who grew up performing their music. I used to teach kids guitar using "Puff" as the example song. And I was in a number of folk groups, some of which performed their songs.

When I was young, it seems the most natural thing in the world for folk music to be a valid and prominent part of the popular music scene, and the realm of the most politically-progressive. But so many of those performers are now gone, whether by natural causes (John Stewart), by their own hand (Phil Ochs), or by their own excesses (Tim Hardin). It's hard to realize, but, nowadays, the notion of folk music as anything other than a refuge for a handful of graying lefties is as bizarre as, say, the idea that gypsy dancing or Haydn quartets could become the Next Big Thing in popular culture.

We still have Pete Seeger, of course, and Joan Baez and Gordon Bok. But their time will come all-too-soon. And then there will be none.

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answer the call,
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all.

[Doctor_J]

6. Their vocation lets them live on however

I have a nearly-complete set of KT/John Stewart on CD/ITunes. Nary a week goes by that he doesn't brighten a day of mine on the way to work or while walking or doing paperwork. Similarly, Steve Earle will be a part of my life as long as I am drawing breath.

Off topic, but did you read the account of Stewart's Memorial service? Holy crap. Ahnuld & Maria, John Glenn, a Kennedy or two...

[redqueen]

5. RIP Mary... thank you.