By:Susan Lin
Forty years is certainly a long time for a music group to be around. But folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary have managed it.
Although they performed more than 200 concerts a year at the height of their fame, Peter, Paul and Mary still do about 40 shows a year. This Sunday, they'll be at the Westbury Music Fair.
Obviously, people and cultural values have changed since Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers did their first performance together in 1961 at The Bitter End bar in Greenwich Village. So how is the folk trio able to maintain an edge today?
Stookey, known to friends and associates as Noel, said the trio differs from many folk or acoustic artists today who "dwell" on a single style, that of the artist.
"I think that a lot of the freshness of what the three of us have done comes from the fact that we are really three very different individuals from different backgrounds," Stookey said. And the interplay of three different styles in folk music has been and remains unique to Peter, Paul and Mary.
"You know a musical chord is three notes in relationship to each other. You can't have a chord with just two notes. And the placement of any one of those notes in relationship to the other two determines its color.
"And if I have the controlling, remaining note, it may well be a jazz chord. If Peter has the remaining note, it very well may be a traditional Appalachian chord. If Mary has the controlling note, it very well may be a child ballad kind of interval, open fifth," Stookey said.
Folk singers/songwriters of today whom Stookey admires include Buddy Mondlock, Steve Seskin, who wrote "Don't Laugh at Me," John Gorka and Tom Paxton.
Back in the 1960s, Peter, Paul and Mary were known for the political and social nature of their music. The group got its identity from its advocacy or denunciation of issues and events like civil rights and the Vietnam War.
Then, issues were relatively few, while today there are many more. The issues of President Bush's plans to develop oil fields in Alaska, gay marriage, violence in schools, the unhealthy American diet are just some. And Peter, Paul and Mary have adapted to a changing perception of and response to social ills in society.
Although he acknowledges that "we are quite a fractured society, where the issues are not really as simple as they used to be," Stookey believes that fighting for political causes is still alive.
"I think that as long as the [song] doesn't take a simplistic point of view, it can still impact today's generation. ... The underlying concerns are the same. Justice is, after all, justice," Stookey said.
"Hip-hop and rap, which was influenced by folk music, is political, except it talks about the struggle of living in the 'hood.'"
Stookey himself is still active in political causes. Currently he is contributing to the protest against the installation of commercial salmon pens at Blue Hill Falls Bay in Maine, where he lives with his wife, Elizabeth. The salmon farm is "one of the small skirmishes right now" in his neighborhood.
At Westbury, Stookey said, "We'll continue to sing about human rights, but not necessarily in terms of something that would support a particular rally or political point of view. It might be in broader strokes than that."
At a Glance
Peter, Paul and Mary
Westbury Music Fair
960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury
(516) 333-7228
7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 12
$32.50. For tickets, call Ticketmaster, (631) 888-9000.
