Music that highlights the Holiday Season

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Music that highlights the Holiday Season

My musical senses tend to heighten when I listen to PBS this Christmas time of the year.   Melodies I've heard played over the years bring joy once again into my life as I lovingly recall this group playing and singing the sweet strains of familiar lyrics, digging deep into the recesses of feelings buried deep within my heart...American Folk Music..

Although she's not with us any longer, I just watched a nostalgic rerun of Peter, Paul and Mary singing one of their very favorites and mine too...Puff the Magic Dragon.  Most of their music had a distinct message of human kindness and giving....and causes, not just empty words.

This trio used to glue our little family together as we watched the two guitarists singing, playing along with Mary who was tall and stately...as the years passed, she got heavier and bigger but her voice never changed, nor did her smile.

In the decades prior to the '60s, through the work of such avatars as Woody Guthrie, the Weavers and Pete Seeger, folk music had become identified with sociopolitical commentary, but the idiom had been forced underground in the Senator Joe McCarthy witch-hunting era of the late '50s. By the time Peter, Paul and Mary arrived on the scene, for the majority of America, folk was viewed merely as a side-bar to pop music which employed acoustic instruments. At this critical historic juncture, with the nation still recovering from the McCarthy era, the Civil Rights Movement taking shape, the Cold War heating up and a nascent spirit of activism in the air, Peter Yarrow, Noel (Paul) Stookey and Mary Travers came together to juxtapose these cross currents and thus to reclaim folk's potency as a social, cultural and political force. But few at the time could have realized how fervently and pervasively the group's message of humanity, hope and activism would be embraced. Having their music associated with causes and solutions is as natural as breathing for Peter, Paul and Mary. The music they purvey and the action it generates are equally important to them and lie at the heart of their story. Most recently, their individual and collective efforts have focused on such crucial issues as gun violence against children, the rights and organizing efforts of strawberry pickers in California, homelessness and world hunger. "We've always been involved with issues that deal with the fundamental human rights of people, whether that means the right to political freedom or the right to breathe air that's clean," Travers points out. No American folk group has lasted longer or amassed a more loyal following than Peter, Paul and Mary

They invited the listening audience to sing along with them...and I DID.

Great fantastic memories to cling to.