The 60’s were a life pivot for me.
I left my rural home for college in the big city in the fall of ’59 and left graduate school to start a career in California in February ’70. There was a lot of transition during that decade. There was a lot of music providing a background for life changing experiences and events but forget the Stones and the Beatles; turn down the Dead and Iron Butterfly; because the musical group that held my hand and kept me going during that decade was Peter, Paul and Mary.
Yes- the pseudo folk group.
It is easy to trivialize the Peter, Paul and Mary. They dressed nice- of course all the groups dressed nice at the beginning of the 60’s. They were inspiring- in a not-so-threatening way. They were hummable. They were hard to resist. I probably first heard them on WFMT- the great Chicago FM station. It was a Saturday tradition for my circle of nerds to take a break from study to listen to a folk music-comedy review called the Midnight Special. There I first heard Bob Newhart, Nichols and May, Pete Seeger and, of course, Peter, Paul and Mary. [continue reading…]
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