Peter Yarrow dead: Puff the Magic Dragon co-writer from trio Peter, Paul & Mary dies aged 86 after bladder cancer battle

At the age of 86, Peter Yarrow, the singer-songwriter best known as one of the three members of Peter, Paul, and Mary, passed away.

According to publicist Ken Sunshine, the icon passed away in New York on Tuesday. He also co-wrote the group’s most enduring hit, Puff the Magic Dragon.

For the last four years, Yarrow has had bladder cancer.

In a statement, the daughter of the legend said: “Our brave dragon is worn out and has reached the end of his amazing existence.

“The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest.”

Yarrow was born in New York on May 31, 1938, and grew up in an upper middle class household that valued education and the arts, according to him.

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As a child, he studied violin, but as he grew to appreciate the songs of folk music greats like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, he switched to guitar.

After earning his degree from Cornell University in 1959, he went back to New York and worked as a struggling musician in the Greenwich Village until he met Stookey and Travers.

Despite having a psychology degree, he discovered his passion for folk music while working as a teaching assistant for an American folklore class in his senior year at Cornell.

Yarrow continued to write and co-write songs over the years, including the popular tune “Torn Between Two Lovers” for Mary MacGregor in 1976.

In 1979, he was nominated for an Emmy for the animated movie Puff the Magic Dragon.

Later compositions include Light One Candle, which calls for peace in Lebanon, and No Easy Walk to Freedom, a civil rights hymn co-written with Margery Tabankin.

Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey, and Mary Travers had an amazing period of success in the 1960s, releasing two No. 1 albums, six Billboard Top 10 singles, and five Grammys.

As they spearheaded an American folk music revival, they also introduced Bob Dylan to the world early on by transforming two of his songs, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, and Blowin’ in the Wind, into Billboard Top 10 singles.

At the 1963 March on Washington, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his well-known I Have a Dream speech, they sang Blowin in the Wind.

The trio returned in 1978 for a Survival Sunday, an anti-nuclear-power event that Yarrow had arranged in Los Angeles, following an eight-year break to pursue single careers.

They would stay together until 2009, when Travers passed away.

Both Yarrow and Stookey continued to perform together and separately after her death.

He has a son, Christopher, and a granddaughter, Valentina, in addition to his ex-wife and daughter.

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