Noel Paul Stookey’s performing career began in Birmingham, Michigan, where, as a lover of jazz, pop, and standup comedy, he formed his award-winning high-school R&B band The Birds of Paradise. At Michigan State University he was a popular MC at campus events before heading to New York City in 1959. Soon he discovered Greenwich Village, started hanging out there to play chess and then landed a steady gig as singer and MC at the Gaslight Cafe. It was there he caught the attention of Albert Grossman, manager of activist Peter Yarrow, who was looking for two more singers to complete his vision of a trio.
Noel agreed to become Paul (his middle name) and Peter, Paul and Mary released their first album in 1962. With two more hit releases the following year, they energized the folk revival of the 1960s and brought songs of peace and social justice to a whole generation of rock ‘n’ rollers. Barely two years after their debut performance at the Village’s Bitter End, they were singing in front of the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd of 250,000 people, joining Dr Martin Luther King, Jr at the historic March on Washington. During its now legendary career, PP&M won five Grammys, produced 13 Top 40 hits, of which six ascended into the Top 10, as well as eight gold and five platinum albums.
In 1969, after almost a decade of travel and performing, Noel had an even deeper calling, this one of the spirit, reawakening his Christian faith and shifting his focus from the world stage to matters closer to home. The following year, as the trio began what they later referred to as their “seven years off for good behavior,” Noel released his first solo album, which included “Wedding Song,” penned for Peter’s marriage to Marybeth McCarthy. Believing that he was merely the steward of a song that had been given to him for the occasion, Noel created and assigned royalties to the Public Domain Foundation (PDF), which, at this writing, has raised more than $2 million supporting social and charitable causes around the world.
Taking to heart the belief in the power of music to create social change, in 2018 Noel and his daughter Liz Stookey Sunde co-founded Music to Life, a national nonprofit dedicated to equipping socially conscious musicians with the training, resources, and mentorship they need to drive meaningful change in their communities. By empowering artists as social entrepreneurs, Music to Life carries the spirit of musical activism into a new era. Noel’s own songwriting style has addressed world issues straight on; they are featured on the CD Just Causes, in which each of fifteen songs on the recording address a global issue that is matched with an organization earmarked for its share of the album’s profits.
Now 87, Noel continues to live in Blue Hill, Maine, with his wife Betty Bannard Stookey, an ordained Congregational minister and co-creator with Noel of “One Light Many Candles,” a multi-faith presentation of readings and songs. “To sing folk music is, ultimately, to live its ethic,” he has stated often in interviews.
October 4 @ 4:00 pm – 9:00 pm
The Greenwich Village Folk Festival: Live 40th Anniversary Concert