Peter Yarrow, Grammy-Winning Musician of Peter, Paul and Mary Fame, Dies at 86

The singer-songwriter was known for hits like “Puff, the Magic Dragon” as well as covers of songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane”

Peter Yarrow, the singer-songwriter and activist whose work in Peter, Paul and Mary made him one of the most beloved folk acts of the 1960s, has died. He was 86.

Yarrow died of bladder cancer on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at his home in New York City, PEOPLE confirms.

“He has kept his doctors in awe at his resilience as he has continued to perform and live life in his own generous and cause-driven way,” his children Christopher and Bethany wrote online in December while asking fans to leave living tributes for their father. “It has been a long road and he has been a strong dragon, but right now he is very weak, and, at 86, his dragon days are numbered.”

They continued: “There is Peter Yarrow the folk activist legend, and then there is the man, a deeply compassionate man, who changed the lives of so many people in very personal ways.”

Peter, Paul and Mary were known for hits like “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “Day is Done” and “Light One Candle,” and had a No. 1 hit with a cover of John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” They also recorded a popular cover of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which they performed in 1963 at the March on Washington led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yarrow was first moved to make purpose-driven music in high school, when he heard The Weavers singing at Carnegie Hall, he said on his website.

“I was stunned by the extraordinary effect that music of conscience can have on people, particularly when they sing songs of conscience together,” he said.

After graduating from Cornell University with a degree in psychology, Yarrow headed to Greenwich Village in New York City, which, at the time, was “a crucible of creativity,” he recalled.

It was there, while playing local coffeehouses as a solo act, that he met future bandmates Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers, and they made their debut as a trio at the Bitter End in 1961. The group released their self-titled debut album in 1962, which topped the charts thanks to hits like “Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer.”

Over the years, the group won five Grammy Awards, notched six Top 10 hits, and earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Though they parted ways in 1970 (due in part to Yarrow’s serving three months in prison after he was accused of making sexual advances toward a teenage autograph-seeker in 1969; he was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1981), Peter, Paul and Mary later reunited, and continued to perform together until Travers’ death in 2009.

“Each of us has a talent that’s pivotal for the group. Peter is a patient and meticulous worker, especially when it comes to sound quality, and that commitment to excellence is what yields the best possible environment in which to be creative,” said Travers.

In addition to the music, Yarrow was an activist, and the group performed at both the March on Washington and at the Selma-Montgomery march two years later. Over the years, Yarrow organized peace concerts that protested the Vietnam War, and was an advocate for hospice patients and children.

In 1996, he founded the Save One Child fund, which provides free interventional radiological neurosurgical treatment to children, and in 1999, he launched the anti-bullying educational nonprofit Operation Respect.

“People can overcome their differences, and when united, move toward a world of greater fairness and justice,” says Yarrow. “As in folk music, each person has a unique role to play.”

Yarrow is survived by his wife Marybeth McCarthy, whom he married in 1969 and later remarried in 2022, as well as his son Christopher, daughter Bethany and a granddaughter.