Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies

Peter Yarrow, who was part of Peter, Paul & Mary and helped popularize folk music in the early ’60s, has died. He was 86.

According to The New York Times, Yarrow died in his Manhattan home on Tuesday. His death was confirmed to the paper by his publicist, who noted Yarrow had been battling bladder cancer for the past four years. (His daughter had been posting updates about his health recently.)

Yarrow – along with Paul Stookey and Mary Travers – formed Peter, Paul & Mary in New York City in the early ’60s and found fame as part of the Greenwich Village folk scene that helped give birth to Bob Dylan around the same time.

READ MORE: Bob Dylan Albums Ranked

The trio was one of the first acts to have a hit with one of Dylan’s songs; their 1963 cover of “Blowin’ in the Wind” reached No. 2 and won a pair of Grammys for Pop Vocal Group and Folk Record.

Even though Peter, Paul & Mary often shared lead vocals on their songs, Yarrow took the spotlight on a few of the trio’s hit singles, including “Puff the Magic Dragon,” which he cowrote.

Yarrow was born on May 31, 1938, in Brooklyn. In addition to his work with Peter, Paul & Mary, he had a solo career in the early ’70s that yielded a pair of songs that hovered outside of the Top 100. He also cowrote “Torn Between Two Lovers,” a No. 1 single for Mary MacGregor in 1977.

He was also an activist spanning decades and subjects, protesting the Vietnam War in the ’60s and advocating for anti-bullying programs in schools in more recent years.

In 1970 he was convicted of taking “improper liberties” with a 14-year-old girl and served three months in prison. “I do not seek to minimize or excuse what I have done and I cannot adequately express my apologies and sorrow for the pain and injury I have caused,” Yarrow told The New York Times in later years. He was pardoned for the crime in 1981 by President Jimmy Carter.

Peter, Paul & Mary broke up in the early ’70s following the charges against Yarrow.  All three members pursued solo careers.

What Songs Did Peter, Paul and Mary Sing?

Throughout the 1960s, Peter, Paul & Mary scored more than a dozen Top 40 hits, including the Top 10 “If I Had a Hammer” in 1962 (also a Grammy winner for Pop Vocal Group and Folk Record), “Puff the Magic Dragon,” Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and their only No. 1, 1969’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” written by another rising artist they supported, John Denver.

Peter, Paul & Mary also had two No. 1 albums: a self-titled debut in 1962 and In the Wind from 1963. Their 1969 LP, Peter, Paul and Mommy, won a Grammy for Children’s Album.

Travers died in 2009 at age 72 of leukemia; Stookey, who was born in 1937, is still alive.

Stookey issued a statement (per The New York Times) calling Yarrow his “creative, irrepressible, spontaneous and musical younger brother” and that he “grew to be grateful for, and to love, the mature-beyond-his-years wisdom and inspiring guidance he shared with me like an older brother. … Perhaps Peter was both of the brothers I never had and I shall deeply miss both of him.”