Blowin’ In The Wind

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Thursday, September 17. 2009

What do you know, Mary Travers has died. She was 72 and suffering from leukemia. Hadn’t thought about her in quite some time, whereas 40 years ago we could find Mary Travers in most publications and on the radio just about every day.

Mary Travers, the beautiful blonde singer from Peter, Paul and Mary, the folk group that brought folk music to top 40. The folk group that brought Bob Dylan to the attention of America when they sang his song “Blowin’ in the Wind.” I would imagine most people who heard the trio perform that song had no idea who wrote it and then when they found out, had no idea who Bob Dylan was. We soon found out who Bob Dylan was.

They had a mid-level stardom throughout the 1960’s, never really the top of the pop charts because, well, it was folk music. Then of course folk music aficionados considered them “too commercial.” These were the same aficionados who vilified Dylan for going electric. So fuck them.

The trio shot to super stardom when they released their last and biggest hit, “Leaving On a Jet Plane.” That put them at the top of the charts … and introduced John Denver to the American Public in 1969.

Most people under the age of 45 probably have no idea who Mary Travers is and what she accomplished in her 72 years. She was an icon of American music for nearly three decades, but fell from public interest when MTV began changing how we enjoy music. Even before MTV, the tight play lists of popular radio squeezed out many groups like Peter, Paul and Mary and by the end of the 1980’s, few people were listening to the trio.

Still, they had their fans so she will not be forgotten. I’m sure there are many young folk artists, unknown to the public at large, who know of Travers — and Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey — but other than that, Peter, Paul and Mary are a group from the era of the grandparents of today.

Years ago I remember taking my mother to see Cab Calloway. He was in his 80’s I think, had a few moves, but wasn’t nearly what he had been 40-50 years earlier. But I was thinking, “this is what my parents were into, this was their rock’n’roll.” It put pop music into perspective.

Yeah kids, Peter Paul and Mary was one of the groups we were listening to when we were your age.

Just a couple days ago actor Patrick Swayze died from pancreatic cancer. The popular notion is that deaths of celebrities come in threes. Well, there are enough celebrities in the world, many of whom are in their golden years like Mary Travers, to make that old folk tale seem real.

Swayze was the guy who danced with Jennifer Gray in Dirty Dancing. Just days before he died I waxed nostalgic for that movie and the lovely Jennifer. But, that wasn’t my favorite of Swayze’s movies. Nope, that would have to be Point Break the surf epic that also starred Keanu Reeves. Swayze was a “bad guy,” the leader of a gang of bank robbers who surfed. Reeves played the under cover FBI agent assigned to infiltrate the gang.

The agent had to learn how to surf, then break “local rules” at the gang’s favorite surf spot and become one of them. It was actually a pretty good movie, if for no other reason that the surfing, but it was the typical morality play: good versus bad, but that bad isn’t so bad and the good guys, not always so good. And of course Keanu Reeves falls in love and puts it all on the line to save his girl, played by Lori Petty.
 She was also in A League of Their Own, playing Kit, the sister to Geena Davis’ Dottie.
 “There’s no crying in baseball!”

Patrick Swayze and Mary Travers … they bring up a lot of great memories. They helped shape our society, if only in small, nearly imperceptible ways, and I was a fan of both.

Posted by Tim Forkes in Celebrity at 08:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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