After 45 years of imprinting unforgettable songs in our heads – “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane” – Peter Yarrow still can’t find the time to relax.
It was his sensitivity as a songwriter and member of the ’60s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary that helped produce so many soothing, emotional songs about the human condition.
Yarrow will perform Friday at the Paramount Theatre in a benefit concert for the Denver Press Club.
Today, those same sensitivities cause him to worry that we are turning into a nation of disrespect, of intimidating bullies.
“We are riddled with disrespect in our daily lives,” he said. “It’s almost become a sport to watch people humiliate each other on shows like ‘American Idol.’ … They’re all about mean-spirited behavior and glorifying the sport of hurting people.”
Deeply moved by the shootings at Columbine High School, in Paducah, Ky., and elsewhere, Yarrow founded an advocacy group, Operation Respect. It focuses on providing schoolchildren a respectful, safe and compassionate place for learning, free from bullying, ridicule and violence.
“We’re now in 15,000 schools around the world, helping to establish an environment of respect and caring,” he said recently. “Uniquely, we use music to open their hearts, so that an environment of sensitivity and civility can be formed. That’s what music can do.”
Yarrow helped set up a program in Patterson Elementary School in Jefferson County. He was aided by state Rep. Debbie Benefield of Arvada, who was president of the Jefferson County PTA during the Columbine shootings.
“Peter was wonderful to work with, trying to instill in the teachers and students a sense of respect, that it’s OK to be different,” she said.
Yarrow has also worked locally with the Jared Polis Foundation. “Operation Respect has been an important force in teaching tolerance and respect in our schools,” Polis said.
Yarrow is familiar with Colorado, having performed solo and with Peter, Paul and Mary numerous times here, starting in the early 1960s. He has owned a home in Telluride since the mid-1970s.
Yarrow remains close with Mary Travers and Paul Stookey. Travers, who lives in Connecticut, recovered last year from lymphoma cancer in time to perform with Peter and Paul at Carnegie Hall last December. Stookey, who lives in Maine, is also focused on creating music for schoolchildren and plans to collaborate with Yarrow this year. The trio hopes to perform monthly this spring and summer. Yarrow will donate his fee for Friday’s performance to Operation Respect.
Peter Yarrow
FOLK|Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place; 7 p.m. Friday|$29 |through Ticketmaster, 303-830- 8497 or ticketmaster.com.
