I was a little kid growing up in the 'sixties when I was introduced to the music of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Oddly enough it was my older cousins from Japan, Sachi and Masayuki, and their circle of friends, Japanese nationals who were studying at the UH or otherwise setting out on their young adulthood, who played PP&M music all the time and had me singing along to "Puff, The Magic Dragon," "If I Had a Hammer," "Five Hundred Miles," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?". The trio's soulful, tuneful folk sound cut through barriers of language and age, and I can pretty much say I first learned how to sing by listening to Mary Travers's pure, soaring vocals. Even later, when I started taking voice lessons and veered off into other types of music, I still heard Mary's voice in my head as an example of natural, supple musicality.
Just a few years ago, I saw my cousin Masayuki for the first time in over 30 years, and right off the bat he asked me if I remembered "Puff, The Magic Dragon." He said he has a memory of me as a young kid telling him I thought it was a very sad song. He remembers that this made him think of the song's lyrics really for the first time, all those years ago, and made him think of me suddenly as not just some generic little cousin, but as an actual, other person, "this sweet boy," he said.
Except that of course I didn't really understand sadness then. A closer knowledge of loss and injustice, and an appreciation for compassion and kindness, the things PP&M sang about, came later. And in my own young adulthood when I gave a second listen to their songs, I borrowed comfort and courage from them, and learned from them all over again.
And so along with millions of others I mourn the passing of Mary Travers, who in some unknowable way taught me first how to sing, and then how to care.
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