The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary (Almost) Truly Is!

The Good: Great vocals, Decent instrumentals, Good lyrics, Good duration
The Bad: Well, it’s missing one song I can think of…
The Basics: A smart collection of music from Peter, Paul And Mary, The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary does exactly what a career-spanning retrospective ought to.


When it comes to the enduring careers of artists who are generally acknowledged as masters in their field, a “Best Of” album usually is a huge anthology or woefully inadequate for the depth and breadth of the artist or group's career. After all, when one distills a fifty year career down to a single disc, things are bound to be missing. In the case of Peter, Paul And Mary, the group has a ton of anthologies and compilations where their older works are reused to make new albums. In the case of The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary, one of the most comprehensive one-disc anthologies of the band's career, this truly is the best of the group . . . though it is missing one of my favorite songs.

My father introduced me to the works of Peter, Paul And Mary at a ridiculously young age and kept them on fairly high replay through my childhood (which is probably how I ended up as a liberal as well as appreciating good lyrics over innovative instrumental works). Their reunion album included a song, “Get Away (To Get Close Again)” which I recall quite fondly. I would have thought this would have been a huge song for fans of Peter, Paul And Mary as it opens the new works where the trio came back together and it’s a good song. It is the only song noticeably missing from The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary.

With twenty-five songs clocking out at almost eighty minutes worth of music, The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary is a powerhouse compilation of the entire musical career of the band Peter, Paul And Mary. The album has both songs the members wrote or co-wrote like “Puff The Magic Dragon” and “El Salvador” as well as songs the band covered in popular or recognizable ways, like Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” or “The Times They Are A Changin’” (performed live). The blend is a wonderful mix of classic and recognizable, like “If I Had A Hammer” and “This Land Is Your Land” and powerful and worthwhile, like “Don’t Laugh At Me” and “I Dig Rock And Roll Music.”

Creatively, The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary is mostly the work of the trio of Peter Yarrow, Noel Stookey and Mary Travers. While they might not have written all of the songs, they perform the lead vocals on each and every song. As well, Noel and Peter play their guitars on all of the songs and the trio produced this compilation. As a result, it is very much the album the trio intended it to be, including the inclusion of a work each written by each member of the band.

Instrumentally, The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary is a folk-rock evolution from very stark instrumental accompaniment on early songs like "500 Miles” and “The Cruel War.” On the early tracks from the band's first few albums, the vocals dominate Peter and Noel's acoustic guitars. By the time “For Baby (For Bobbie)” comes up on the album, the instrumental accompaniment is fleshed out a little with the presence of a bass and on songs like “The Great Mandala (The Wheel Of Life)” and “Weave Me The Sunshine,” the instrumental accompaniment is richer and sounds a bit more produced. But even some of the richest-sounding songs are produced to sound that way and the instrumental accompaniment is actually fairly limited. Chief among these is the live rendition of “The Times They Are A Changin’,” a song which has been close to my heart for months now. The instruments are a guitar and a bass (there is no percussion or keyboards), but the harmonizing between the bandmembers is so full that it easily sounds much more produced and orchestral – there is a grander sense to it – than if one strips away the vocals.

The vocals are integral to Peter, Paul and Mary and this is the ideal compilation in that regard as the recordings chosen use the band's natural and healthy voices. Mary Travers, as I have noted on some of my other reviews, got to a point where her vocals were occasionally squeaky and The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary has none of that. Instead, Travers’ voice is an exceptional soprano voice which clearly articulates and it emotes wonderfully. Even on “The Times They Are A Changin’,” her voice stands out as a passionate expression of the lyrics.

Not to be outdone, both Noel and Peter are exceptional vocalists with decent ranges. One wonders what “Puff The Magic Dragon” would be like without Yarrow's tenor voice and on “Early Morning Rain,” both men dabble in the lower ranges and the harmony is extraordinary. Peter, Paul And Mary is a true trio that works best as the three vocalists harmonize and there is not a single track on the album where they do not play to their strengths and they seem perfectly able to let each other shine throughout.

Perhaps this is because the songs are socially-conscious challenges to the powers that be or are equally passionate explorations of human longing. Most of the songs are folk ballads and the band sings both passionately and clearly. Mary Travers stands out with the men doing minimal harmonizing when she sings “So kiss me and smile for me / Tell me that you'll wait for me / Hold me like you'll never let me go / I'm leaving on a jet plane / Don’t know when I'll be back again / Oh babe, I hate to go” (“Leaving On A Jet Plane”) and the song works as a perfectly passionate cry for love and desire. Anyone who has ever been abandoned will feel the tug just hearing the voice and the clarity of the lyrics make it all the more wrenching.

In addition to ballads that make it clear that Peter, Paul And Mary (and those whose words they are covering) know quite a bit about the human soul, the songs are also about change both popular (“I Dig Rock And Roll Music”) and social (“Blowin’ In The Wind”). While “The Very Best Of Peter, Paul And Mary” is not the greatest concentration of socially-active songs, they make an effort to include obvious social messages. So, for example, they come together well to make the statement “Too much of nothing / Make a man fell ill at ease / One man's temper might rise / While another man's temper freeze . . . There's too much of nothing / No one has control” (“Too Much Of Nothing”).

The album is a very complete view of who the band Peter, Paul And Mary is – or, sadly now, was – and this is the ultimate album for anyone who wants a single Peter, Paul And Mary album. Anyone who loves folk music will enjoy this and anyone who is not already a fan will find this album is likely to make them one!

For other albums by Peter, Paul And Mary, please check out my reviews of:
Peter, Paul, & Mommy, Too
Lifelines
Around The Campfire
Songs Of Conscience & Concern
In These Times

10/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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