Peter Yarrow has never lost faith in the power of a song, and to prove it, he continues to travel and sing.

“Every time I sing, I’m undaunted,” Yarrow said in a phone call from his New York City office. “I’m hopeful and positive, but I’m not unrealistic. We’re up against it, no question. We’re dealing with some very tough challenges.”

Yarrow, who will perform April 24 at the State Theatre in Zumbrota, is no stranger to challenges. Both as a member of Peter, Paul & Mary and as a solo artist, Yarrow has sung for, and participated in, any number of causes in the past 50 years, from civil rights marches to anti-war rallies and now anti-bullying.

Yarrow, who has family ties to Minnesota, said he was aware that the Minnesota Legislature recently passed a new anti-bullying bill, although he has not had time to read it.

“I’m very excited about it,” he said. “I feel the energy we’ve been generating for 15 years is part and parcel of this kind of consensus.”

 

Yarrow was referring to Operation Respect, an anti-bullying project for which he has recorded the song “Don’t Laugh at Me” and which provides free curricula for anti-bullying programs in schools around the world.

 

“We really need to give kids an environment in which it is the norm for them to say ‘We don’t countenance this type of behavior in our school,’” Yarrow said.

 

But Yarrow’s present-day activism doesn’t stop with anti-bullying efforts. He plans to participate in peace concerts June 11 in Ramala and June 12 in Jerusalem.

 

Yarrow, now 75, graduated from Cornell University in 1959 and then formed a trio with Paul Stookey and Mary Travers. Peter, Paul & Mary became leaders of the folk revival of that era, and had early hits with “Lemon Tree,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Puff the Magic Dragon” (which Yarrow wrote) and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” For the next few decades, Peter, Paul & Mary combined their music with political and social activism. Travers died in 2009.

 

For his Zumbrota concert, Yarrow promised a little bit of everything from his career. “There will be stories, songs, the Peter, Paul & Mary repertoire, people will sing along,” he said. “Most of the songs I’ll be doing, I think will initiate a very strong memory of a time when these kinds of songs were part of our day-to-day life.”

 

Songs of political and social relevance are still being written and recorded, Yarrow said, but they struggle to find an audience in today’s marketplace. “You tell me who has written a ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ in the last decade,” he said.

 

That doesn’t mean music has lost its ability to reach and move people, Yarrow said.

 

“Every time I sing, I hear people singing with me,” he said. “It shows that it’s in people’s hearts to sing together and to care for one another. That makes me feel good.”