Folk Trio Still Strives to ‘Hammer’ Point Home

With 36 years of experience behind them, Peter, Paul & Mary bring their brand of preachy, populist and, ultimately, uplifting folk music to the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks for a pair of pricey shows, today and Saturday at 8 p.m.

It all started in the early ‘60s at Greenwich Village’s Bitter End coffeehouse when Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers made their debut. Their self-titled 1962 debut album was an instant classic, staying on Billboard’s Hot 100 album chart for a 3 1/2 years. Known for such hits as “If I Had a Hammer,” “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane,” the trio has toured the world and made more than 20 albums, selling millions of them.

These days, with lives of their own, the trio is definitely not on the nonstop tour they once were, keeping it to around 50 performances a year. At these gigs, the trio will definitely be sharing songs from their fourth PBS special, “LifeLines,” which aired in March.

Also, their album of the same name is a celebration of the past, present and future generations of activist folkies who clearly have their work cut out for them, considering all those mean people who continue to do bad stuff so often to so many. The erudite Yarrow discussed the impetus for the project recently from his New York office.

“Well, my friend, sometime ago we realized the sense of continuity and community within the folk-music family,” he said. “What we’ve been doing at the festivals for years has never been shared in a television format. For years, at the Newport [R.I.] Folk Festival and the Kerrville [Texas] Folk Festival, we’ve shared the stage and sensed the intergenerational strength of the music. It’s definitely not business as usual where music has become reduced to equations that are not necessarily aesthetic or creative.”

*

Folk music is steeped in tradition. The fervor of the past--as personified by the late Woody Guthrie--can be welded to current issues, creating music that is pushy and pertinent. If a band today reworks “Stairway to Heaven,” they’re ripping off Led Zeppelin. When Peter, Paul & Mary sing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” everyone holds hands, feels groovy and sings along.

“Folk music is unique music,” said Yarrow. “I remember when I first saw the Weavers at Carnegie Hall in 1955; it was my senior year in high school. Mary was there; Tom Paxton was in the audience. It was an amazing moment for me. The Weavers sang ‘If I Had a Hammer’--what was it, 41 years ago? And they were singing that song before that. We’re still singing ‘If I Had a Hammer’ in 1996, and that song will continue to be sung long after Peter, Paul & Mary are gone. Folk music is a wonderful family, filled with people of enormous energy and focus.”

The trio was joined on the “LifeLines” project by a number of old and new friends, including Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, B.B. King, Emmylou Harris, Odetta, John Sebastian, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk and Richie Havens, among others. There’s a social context here, not just a musical context. Madonna, Courtney Love and Mariah Carey probably don’t have pajama parties together.

“In folk music, we’re all obviously connected,” said Yarrow. “It demonstrates the warmth, the hope and excitement that exists for all generations of this music. When you hear folk music, you laugh, you are moved, and you think about ideas, unlike other forms of music, which can be music of escape or music of pure entertainment. Folk music is a music of love, hopes and dreams. It validates what everyone’s feeling. Each of us can make a difference, and each of us matters. There is a Jewish proverb that says it is not your task to save the world on your own, but you must not shirk from doing your part.”

If the business of America is business, then aren’t folkies just wild-eyed dreamers who don’t have a clue to these pragmatic times? Hippies still lost 30 years after the love-in? Not according to Yarrow.

“We make no excuses for being believers, for being purveyors of ideas we believe in, ideas that we inherited, that we carry on,” he said.

*

Yarrow has long been active in humanitarian causes. The trio marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and Washington, and were involved in antiwar efforts during the ‘60s. Yarrow co-organized the March on Washington in 1969. Always a dare-to-think-for-himself kind of guy, Yarrow will probably be the last person to do the vapid “Howzit goin’ tonight, Thousand Oaks?”

“We sing these songs. We live them. We’ve inherited the legacy of folk music. We appreciate and enjoy each other,” he said. “When we play, as if by magic, a sense of community is created.”

DETAILS

* WHAT: Peter, Paul & Mary.

* WHERE: Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks.

* WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Saturday.

* COST: $58, $48, $38.

* CALL: 449-2787.