Who was Mary Travers? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Mary Allin Travers

Died At Age: 72

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Ethan Robbins (m. 1991), Barry Feinsteinm (1963–19680, Gerald L. Taylor (1969–1975)

father: Robert Travers

mother: Virginia Coigney

siblings: Ann Gordon, John Travers

children: Alicia Travers, Erika Marshall

Born Country: United States

Pop Singers Lyricists & Songwriters

Died on: September 16, 2009

place of death: Danbury, Connecticut, United States

Cause of Death: Leukemia

U.S. State: Kentucky

City: Louisville, Kentucky

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Career

Mary Travers, along with Peter Yarrow, and Noel Paul Stookey, started the group ‘Peter, Paul and Mary’, in 1961. They soon released their first album ‘Peter, Paul and Mary’, which was a success, peaking at 1st position on the US Billboard 200. It included the hit singles such as ‘Lemon Tree’ and ‘If I Had a Hammer’. They won the Grammy award for the latter, in two different categories: ‘Best Folk Recording’ and ‘Best Performance by a Vocal Group’.

In 1963, they released their second album, ‘Moving’, which also was a success. The single ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’, became a huge hit. Their third album was ‘In the Wind’. The single ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording and Best Performance by a Vocal Group’. The album also reached 1st position on the US Billboard 200.

Over the next years, the group continued to release several more albums, though they were not as successful. Some of them include ‘A Song Will Rise’ (1965), ‘See What Tomorrow Brings ‘ (1965), ‘Album 1700’ (1967), ‘Peter, Paul and Mommy’ (1969), ‘No Easy Walk to Freedom’ (1986), ‘Flowers and Stones’ (1990), and ‘In These Times’ (2004).

Travers had also begun her solo career in 1971, with the debut album ‘Mary’. Though it wasn’t much of success, it was the most successful of all the five solo albums she had recorded and released. It included singles such as ‘I Guess He’d Rather Be in Colorado’, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, ‘Erika with the Windy Yellow Hair’ and ‘Indian Sunset’. She released four more solo albums, which were ‘Morning Glory’, (1972), ‘All My Choices’, (1973), ‘Circles’ (1974), and ‘It’s In Everyone of Us’ (1978).

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Personal Life

Mary Travers was born on 9 November 1936, in Louisville, Kentucky, in the US. Her parents, Robert Travers and Virginia Coigney, were journalists as well as active organizers of a trade union named The Newspaper Guild. They moved to Greenwich Village, in New York City, in 1938.

Mary studied at Little Red School House, but she left high school before graduating, to become a part of the Song Swappers folk group. She performed with the group for some time, before she formed ‘Peter Paul and Mary’.

Travers was married four times. From 1958 to 1960, she was married to John Filler. They had one child.

She married Barry Feinstein in 1963, with whom she had a second child. They divorced in 1968.

From 1969 till 1975, she was married to Gerald L Taylor.

Her last marriage was with Ethan Robbins. They got married in 1991, and remained together till she passed away in 2009.

She was diagnosed with leukemia, in 2004. She had a bone marrow transplant soon but it caused complications, which led to her death in September 2009. Her body was buried at Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding, Connecticut, in US.

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Mary Travers Biography