Review of Peter, Paul And Mary: Carry It On A Musical Legacy

Introduction

Documentary about the harmonic `60s folk trio, featuring archive clips of their early work as well as more recent footage following their late `70s reunion. As they brought their contemporaries` work to a different audience (covering everything from Dylan to John Denver), they bridged the gap between the contentious counter-culture and a more wholesome mainstream fan-base. Material spanning their whole career is featured on the disc, the live performances interspersed with interviews from friends, collaborators and the trio themselves. Whilst continuing to nurture their fan-base with new material, `Peter, Paul and Mary` have otherwise drifted from the limelight. So, a curio indeed, but a welcome blast from the past, or a saccharine crypt for the blind optimism of the 1960s?

Video

Bog-standard 4:3, but lets face it, studio bound interviews and grainy archive footage doesn`t scream for the sparky digitally remastered work-over.

Audio

A clear but flat mono track.

Features

None.

Conclusion

For those of us not channeling Rimbault, acid-tripping to the centre of our minds and hugging dolphins in the 1960s, the sight of three simpering Bohemians chiming harmlessly through their mildly political but disarmingly inoffensive folk ditties is less the confluence of a generations` political angst and more `Beavis and Butthead`s Mr. Van Driessen strumming `Lesbian Seagull` before, of course, having his hippie brains smashed in by some truncheon happy rozzers. No such authoritarian backlash occurs in `Carry it On: A Musical Legacy` however, as Peter, Paul and Mary, accompanied by a limited selection of sycophantic admirers, steadfastly cling to their cherished ideals of human solidarity and peace on Earth.

Whilst recent and past performances take up the bulk of the running time, there`s plenty of contemporary interview footage with the reformed threesome. Slightly forlorn in their autumn years, but still full of warmth and gently chiding leftest pep, the group talk about the career-shaping melting-pot of Vietnam and the civil rights movement. Save for some sanctimoniously self-aggrandising asides, there`s something transportingly nostalgic about the group`s perfectly fossilised attitudes. Their convictions so ironclad, the sight of them singing the same old tune doesn`t feel like a desperate scramble to imitate past success, it feels like the perfect affirmation of an idealised political conviction. But still, call it a generational divide, but was there really a time when we genuinely believed that a new humanist consciousness could be achieved with gentle harmonising and singing `Puff the Magic Dragon` to impressionable adolescents?

Still, as tame as the music is, there`s a violent disconnect between their impassioned non-conformist anthems of the `60s and contemporary scenes like that of Mary, her grand-daughter nestled on her lap, singing her a lullaby before an audience of infants and their doped and doting parents. What does the sentimentality now tell us about how those convictions have mutated? The group themselves insist that things are better, the world is better since those divided times, but is this really what the rebellions of the `60s have won? An infantalised culture of stranded hippies, worshipping their own failed dreams, their own immortalised empathy that soars "at least we tried" over a plaintive melody? But as depressing as most of this disc is, hearing Mary`s towering, gently searing voice in `If I had a Hammer` manages to send a disquieting chill down the spine. It may preach to a different divide to modern listeners, but it still maintains a haunting resonance as an eerie hymn to those failed dreams, and a poignant signal to the withering contempt that has followed.