Josh Friedberg: Music Historian's Corner writesRediscovering Our Record Collections: Peter, Paul and Mommy and Peter, Paul and Mommy, Too

by Josh Friedberg

For many, Peter, Paul & Mary were the most accessible entry point for the folk revival of the 1960s. Surprisingly, this remained true in the decades following, and part of this has to do with their participation in children’s music with two similarly titled albums.

I grew up on ‘60s folk music, and these were the two albums of theirs I grew up listening to the most. To be fair, I grew up with the Peter, Paul & Mary of PBS specials in the ‘80s and ‘90s, so my interaction with their music was different from most of their fans. This meant that I played the 1993 children’s album that they did, Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too, more than the original Peter, Paul and Mommy from 1969, and while both have their moments of beauty and pleasantness, I prefer the ‘90s album, partly because it has more songs geared towards adults, including Woody Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty,” though it also has moments much more targeted at kids.

Peter, Paul & Mary were actually a group put together by folk manager Albert Grossman in the early ‘60s, which makes their longevity all the more surprising. I remember reading in an obituary for Mary Travers in 2009 that the group won five Grammy awards during their initial reign in the ‘60s, the final one being for the 1969 children’s album. In the 2004 DVD, Carry It On: A Musical Legacy, Peter Yarrow talks about how from the beginning, the group put children’s songs on all their albums, including “It’s Raining” and “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” both reprised on the 1969 album.

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