MUSIC

McGonigel's Mucky Duck presents Noel Paul Stookey. Concert benefitting HUGWORKS.

Singer/songwriter Noel Paul Stookey has been altering both the musical and ethical landscape of this country and the world for decades—both as the “Paul” of the legendary Peter, Paul and Mary and as an independent musician who passionately believes in bringing the spiritual into the practice of daily life. Funny, irreverently reverent, thoughtful, compassionate—passionate—Stookey’s vocal sound is known all across this land: from the “Wedding Song” to “In These Times.”

Born December 30, 1937, Stookey grew up in the Midwest where he played electric guitar in his high school rock ’n’ roll band (the Birds of Paradise) and hung out at an R&B record shop listening to groups like the Drifters, the Platters, the Cadillacs. When he moved to New York City, he was 20, looking for independence, but what he found were “Peter” and “Mary,” and a career that took on a life of its own, with their first album shooting to the top of the charts, where it stayed for two years. He has performed in intimate coffeehouses, at the White House, and in massive stadiums. At the 1963 March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, Peter, Paul and Mary delivered the compelling “If I Had a Hammer” and “Blowin’ in the Wind”

Stookey’s sound has been shaped by huge cities, as well as the smallest hamlets of the Heartland, housing projects, coastal Maine villages, towns up and down the Mississippi, and by his search for a common language that enables everyone no matter their origins and experiences to communicate with each other and celebrate the mystery of life.

“The warm, clowning humor and humanistic sensitivity which characterized the efforts of Paul Stookey in Peter, Paul & Mary remain in joyful abundance in his solo career as Noel Paul Stookey…” -Daily Variety

 “Stookey’s special, infectious and charming brand of humor.., watching and hearing Stookey sing Puff The Magic Dragon as if he were a kid, a pirate, then a kid again brings out the magic…” -Music Review