Though some purists dismiss Peter, Paul & Mary as the calculated, commercial face of the 1960s folk boom, there is no denying the large-scale impact and cultural importance of the trio's music. With that in mind, it's difficult to fault 1970's TEN YEARS TOGETHER: THE BEST OF, a concise, superbly selected sampler of PP&M. The album plays, even all these years later, like pure honey from beginning to end, thanks entirely to the group's lilting three-part harmonies (in which Noel Stookey's baritone and Peter Yarrow's tenor perfectly offset Mary Traver's lovely alto).
The group's voices and arrangements made shiny, cleaned-up hits out of some of the era's slightly rougher-hewn folk classics, and the best of those are here, including their version of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain," and Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer." Other tunes in the collection--"Lemon Tree" and "Puff the Magic Dragon," among them--have become classics in their own right, with the occasional full-band rocker, such as the group's take on Dylan's "Too Much of Nothing," included for good measure. BEST OF makes a strongly persuasive case for Peter, Paul & Mary's superstardom, and is essential listening for anyone remotely interested in folk.
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