Why '60s folk music still brings people together, according to Peter, Paul and Mary singer

Noel Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow are headed to Mesa to perform what Stookey says will be "a nostalgic visit through the Peter, Paul and Mary lexicon."

But it's relevant nostalgia.

As Stookey says, "The greatest hits, which you would think would be just totally nostalgic, are surprisingly quite pertinent in this contentious age in which we live politically."

He quotes the chorus to the trio's iconic recording of Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer (the Hammer Song)," a Top 10 hit they performed in 1963 at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"'Hammer out justice, hammer out freedom, hammer out love between our brothers and our sisters,' I mean, that's not so archaic in terms of our desire to have it happen," Stookey says.

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How Stookey and his daughter are giving young activist artists a voice

That unwavering belief in music as an instrument of social change has led the folk veteran to team with his daughter, Elizabeth Stookey Sunde, on Music to Life, an organization that recently released the second in a series of "Hope Rises" albums showcasing the next generation of activist artists addressing social issues.

"That is trying to reach a younger demographic, who listen to hip-hop, who listen to other forms of music," Stookey says.

"It's the lyric that is the bottom line. And what concerns me probably the most about pop music is that it spends so little time parsing a deeper message."

He's not saying every song should parse a deeper message.

"There's a time and a place in everybody's life to celebrate," Stookey says. "If you're 16 years old and going to a prom, you don't want to be dancing to 'Blowin' in the Wind.' And that's OK. But you might be thinking about that after your history class, when your enlightened teacher played it for you."

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The '60s folk scene 'called for us to be more than just musicians'

Stookey sees something of his former self in these young activist musicians.

"Our involvement with (Cesar) Chavez and the March on Washington, it called for us to be more than just musicians, to put our bodies on the line, to go marching, to make statements, to be present," Stookey says.

"These artists on 'Hope Rises' enter into the communities. They work with the people, whether it's homeless, whether it's in prisons, whether it's in schools. And fortunately, we just received a huge grant from the Mellon Foundation, so we're able to actually mentor those artists who would like to spend more time doing public service."

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Greenwich Village showed him 'music could do more than entertain'

Stookey wasn't thinking about music as a form of public service when he first got interested in playing.

"What drew me to music was a musical dad with a tenor guitar tuned like a ukulele," Stookey says. "I had no sense of social change at all. I was an emulator. In high school, I had a rock 'n' roll group called the Birds of Paradise. I wrote very derivative tunes. I mean, we had a ball. It was the '50s."

When he found himself in Greenwich Village with its beatniks and burgeoning folk music scene at what he calls "the tail end of the Kerouac comet," it all came into focus.

"That's where I encountered traditional tunes, Guthrie and particularly Black gospel and slowly became aware of the fact that music could do more than entertain," Stookey says. "But I was a latecomer."

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Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers had a head start on the folk scene

Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers were "right in the thick of it," Stookey says.

"Mary marched against the execution of the Rosenbergs in Washington, D.C., with her parents. Peter was teaching folk music at Cornell when he attended. So what I absorbed from the Village experience was a sense of social inconsistency, you might say, and the desire to make it right."

It was the authenticity of folk music that grabbed him, Stookey says.

"The honest statement that lay at the root of the writing, whether it was born out of pain, as many of the songs from the Black community were, or whether it was born out of hope, or sometimes cynical, a Phil Ochs disappreciation of what was happening politically. It was just galvanizing for me."

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Wanting to be 'a spokesperson for the best part of humankind'

He spent a year so doing what he calls "imitating" folk music, but he got the hang of it eventually.

"I became a convert when I recognized that here was a chance to talk about something meaningful," he says. "So 'Get with it, Stookey.' It was gradual. But by the time 1963 came around, I was full into it and wanting to be a spokesperson for the best part of humankind."

It would be difficult to overstate just how important Peter, Paul and Mary's early records were in spreading the gospel of the early '60s folk revival to the mainstream. Their first, self-titled album spent six weeks at No. 1 in 1962 while sending "Lemon Tree" and "If I Had a Hammer" to the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100.

And the hits kept coming — "Puff (the Magic Dragon)," hit renditions of the Dylan classics "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," "I Dig Rock and Roll Music" and their chart-topping entry on the Hot 100, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," chief among them.

Travers died in 2009 of complications from chemotherapy, following treatment for leukemia. That same year, Peter, Paul and Mary were inducted to the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

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How to see Noel Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow in metro Phoenix

Their March 18 show at Mesa Arts Center is the first performance of 2023 for the folk legends.

"He's one of my best buddies," Stookey says of Yarrow. "But we seldom get together except for shows. We're on the phone a lot, encouraging each other or admonishing each other. The pandemic took a big slice out of our hanging out together. But we'll do maybe four shows this year, maybe five. And Mesa is the first."

He's looking forward to it. And not just the opportunity to spend time with Yarrow. There's great satisfaction in leading a roomful of people in singing along to songs like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "If I Had a Hammer," songs whose deeper impact transcends peak position on the Billboard Hot 100.

"It's kind of an allegiance in a sense, because everyone sings it together," Stookey says. "And for that couple hours, we're sort of wed at the hip in terms of our intention to make this a better world and a kinder place and a more compassionate world."

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Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, March 18.

Where: Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main St.

Admission: $50-$70.

Details: 480-644-6500, mesaartscenter.com.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Peter, Paul and Mary singer on music's power to change the world