February 2 – Peter, Paul and Mary – A Song Will Rise

Happy Ground Hog Day! Punxsutawny Phil saw his shadow meaning six more weeks of winter. However, I just learned that in 25 years, Phil, or whoever is posing as Phil, has been correct 10 times and wrong 15.

How appropriate that tonight’s workout was to folk legends Peter, Paul and Mary less than a week after the great Pete Seeger’s passing. Folk is not the best music for exercising, but it’s not the worst. I just don’t know whose album this is. My father didn’t like that bebop music, which would include folk and rock, and it couldn’t have been my mother’s, I don’t think. She was a young suburban housewife and mother in her early 20s, and my father was 11 years older. I had asked her once why she never got into rock ‘n roll. She had been a bobby soxer screaming for Frank Sinatra, why didn’t she go for Elvis? And I knew she liked the Beatles. “It just wasn’t done,” was her reply, referring to the role of the young suburban housewife in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I always believed had she gotten into rock ‘n roll at some level, she would have been a much less conflicted person. That would leave my brother. I would think he was a little young for this album, and his name isn’t written on it as it is on so many others, but there’s no other option.

I remember seeing the trio on Ed Sullivan, but don’t recall anything about this album. But it does end with Gordon Lightfoot’s “For Loving Me.” Side one wasn’t short, but I still needed some pep and fast Midleresque versions of “Lullaby of Broadway” and “In the Mood,” which made for an interesting mixing of genres for Peter, Paul and Mary and Bette.