Mary Allin Travers was an American singer-songwriter and member of the folk music group Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey. Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most successful folk music groups of the 1960s. Travers, unlike most folk musicians of the early 1960s who were a part of the burgeoning music scene, grew up in New York City's Greenwich Village. A contralto, Travers released five solo albums in addition to her work with Peter, Paul and Mary.
The Song Swappers sang backup for Pete Seeger on four reissue albums in 1955, when Folkways Records reissued a collection of Seeger's pro-union folk songs, "Talking Union". Travers regarded her singing as a hobby and was shy about it, but was encouraged by fellow musicians. She also was in the cast of the Broadway show The Next President. The group Peter, Paul and Mary was formed in 1961, and was an immediate success. They shared a manager, Albert Grossman, with Bob Dylan. Their success with Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" helped propel Dylan's Freewheelin' album into the U.S. Top 30 four months after its release. An Associated Press obituary noted: Peter, Paul and Mary broke up in 1970. The band broke up shortly after having their biggest UK hit, singer-songwriter John Denver's poignant ballad "Leaving on a Jet Plane" ; the song made No. 1 on both the U.S. Billboard and Cash Box charts in December 1969 and was the group's only number one hit. Travers subsequently pursued a solo career and recorded five albums: Mary, Morning Glory, All My Choices, Circles and It's in Everyone of Us. Peter, Paul and Mary re-formed in 1978, toured extensively, and issued many new albums. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.
Personal life
Travers was married four times. Her first brief union, to John Filler, produced her older daughter, Erika, in 1960. In 1963, she married Barry Feinstein, a prominent freelance photographer of musicians and celebrities. Her younger daughter, Alicia, was born in 1966, and the couple divorced the following year. In the 1970s, she was married to Gerald Taylor, publisher of National Lampoon. Following her marriage to Taylor, Travers had a relationship for several years with former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste while raising her daughters in New York. In 1991, she married restaurateur Ethan Robbins; Travers lived with Robbins in the small town of Redding, Connecticut, for the remainder of her life.
Illness and death
In 2004, Travers was diagnosed with leukemia. A bone marrow transplant in 2005 induced a temporary remission, but she died on September 16, 2009, at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, from complications related to the marrow transplant and other treatments. She was 72 years old. In addition to her husband, survivors included daughters Erika and Alicia; her sister, the educator and psychologist Ann Gordon; and two granddaughters, Virginia and Wylly. She was buried at Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding, Connecticut.
Legacy
A memorial service for Travers was held on November 9, 2009, at Riverside ChurchIn New York City. The four-hour service, on what would have been her seventy-third birthday, was attended by a capacity crowd. Two of the many reflections shared at the service speak to the impact of Mary Travers's work and the significance of her legacy. Feminist Gloria Steinem commented that with her poise and conviction as a performer, Ms. Travers "seemed to us to be a free woman, and that helped us to be free." Folk singer and co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival, Theodore Bikel, mused on her roles as political activist and glamorous pop-music touchstone:
