Guitar

Peter Yarrow was a member of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. He used this guitar for performances and recordings of the group in 1961 and 1962. The guitar was used on the entirety of their debut album Peter, Paul and Mary released in 1962. This steel-strung Martin guitar, paired with Noel Paul Stookey’s nylon-strung guitar, was a key component of the group’s famed sound. This guitar was used on songs from the album including their first hit "Lemon Tree," as well as the song "500 Miles," and their rendition of Pete Seeger’s, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." The album also included another Seeger song, "If I Had a Hammer," which garnered the trio two Grammy Awards for the Best Folk Recording and Best Performance by a Vocal Group. The cover of that iconic album features the trio standing in front of a brick wall at the New York City music venue The Bitter End. In that photo, Yarrow stands holding his guitar and Stookey holds his nylon-strung Martin guitar, both of which are now a part of the collection of The Metropolitan Museum.
Peter Yarrow shared the following story about the acquisition of this guitar:

"Alas, prior to owning my O-16 NY Martin" Peter notes, "I had just lost a guitar that did that very thing for me. It was also a Martin guitar; I was used to it, I knew it immediately, and when I put my fingers on it I knew what it was going to sound like-and I really loved that sound. This made it all the more embarrassing and humiliating for me when I left it in the back of a taxi on the way to the airport as I traveled with Noel Paul Stookey to do one of Peter Paul and Mary’s earliest 'club' gigs in Miami, Florida.

Fortunately, I was able to get the O-16NY sent to me from New York in time for our first performance and even more fortunately, I truly loved the sound of it right from the get-go. That guitar and I had many amazing journeys ahead of us including the recording of Peter Paul and Mary’s first album called, simply, 'Peter Paul and Mary.'

What was unique, at the time, and what made it very easy for anyone listening to a stereo recording of Peter Paul and Mary, is the clarity with which the listener could hear the sound of each of our guitars. For one thing, at Albert Grossman’s direction, Bill Schwartau, our engineer, placed my guitar with my voice on one side and on the other side he placed Noel Paul’s voice with his guitar. In the middle you could hear Mary’s voice. Further, the guitars were deliberately positioned 'full right' and 'full left' in the stereo mix, rather than in the center. Also, and equally important, is the fact that the only instruments that were accompanying the trio’s voices were our two guitars and the bass played by Bill Lee."

This guitar if a model O-16NY Martin guitar, serial number 178024. The tuners on the guitar are Kluson replacements of the original WG-31 Waverly units. The bridge is also replaced with a Martin post-1965 variant. A clear pickguard has been added to the guitar since its first appearance in images of the trio.

The following was written by Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey about the Martin guitars they donated to The Met:
"Our two Martin guitars became central to our lives under unusual circumstances. It was an amazing, idealistic and heady time in New York’s Greenwich Village in the early 1960s and the joy and optimism that we felt, as it was expressed in the folk music that we had inherited – and were now beginning to emulate in our own songwriting – filled us up in ways that are hard to express, and certainly to understand, for those who have not experienced it.

When one is singing folk music, and one’s only instrument is a guitar accompanying one’s voice, the sound of that guitar is a precious thing and an essential tool. To be able to feel inspired, and for that matter, to inspire others, if one is fortunate enough for that to happen, one needs to make a sonic 'marriage' between one’s guitar, one’s soul and one’s voice."