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About Noel
Halfway through a 2023 performance in his hometown of Blue Hill, Maine, 85-year-old Noel Paul Stookey, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, reached for the case behind him to show the crowd his latest project, the Manulenjo. Sitting on a stool at the microphone, he pointed out the instrument’s unique features: a round body like the African banjo, a short neck and eight paired steel strings like the Italian mandolin, and tuning like that of the Portuguese ukulele. Crediting master guitar-maker David LaPlante for its beautiful construction and sweet sound, Noel described its conception as a celebration of America’s ethnic and musical diversity and then began strumming “Dance to the Manulenjo,” his story song about a fractured House of Congress and a musician arriving there with his Manulenjo and calling the people to dance.
Noel is a familiar friend in the Downeast community where he and his wife, Betty, have lived since the early seventies. He has sung in the church choir and with pros and amateurs alike in countless local fundraisers. Even while Peter, Paul and Mary were on tour extensively, Noel would return to Blue Hill with a youthful exuberance for whatever was next, and frankly no one is surprised that his joyful creativity is still at play.
His 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 called “The Birds of Paradise.” At Michigan State University he was a popular emcee at campus events before heading to New York City in 1959. Soon he discovered Greenwich Village, started hanging out to play chess and then landed a steady gig as singer and master of ceremonies at the Gaslight Cafe. It was there he caught the attention of Albert Grossman, who was manager at the time of activist Peter Yarrow and was looking for two more singers to complete his vision of a trio.
Noel agreed to take on ‘Paul’ as his middle name and ‘Peter, Paul and Mary’ soon became a popular music phenomenon. Releasing their first album in 1962 and 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. When asked in a 2020 interview what his most memorable time was in his five decades with the trio, Noel cited that day in Washington all those years ago. “It awakened me,” he said. “It awakened all of us.”
Noel, Peter and Mary became an iconic ‘family’ both on and off stage; the affection between the three of them palpable and present. Performing over 200 concerts a year, they brought both traditional and newly written songs of justice and peace to a global audience. During its now legendary career, the trio won five Grammy's, produced 13 Top 40 hits, of which 6 ascended into the Top 10 - as well as eight gold and five platinum albums.
In 1969, after nearly a decade of constant 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. “My perspective on everything changed,” he recalls, “and I am immensely grateful for it.”
The following year, as the trio began what they later referred to as their “seven years off for good behavior,” he released his first solo album. It included the widely popular “Wedding Song,” penned for the occasion of 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.
By 1974, inspired by Helen and Scott Nearing’s book Living the Good Life, Noel and Betty had left New York City and the suburbs to settle with their young family into rural life in Blue Hill, Maine. Noel oversaw the renovation of a four-story henhouse on his property and installed a recording studio on the fourth floor, establishing Neworld Media. He encouraged and recorded up-and-coming Maine artists like David Mallett and Noel’s own Bodyworks band, a dynamic group of musicians AND rare theological liberals in the Christian Music genre, with whom he produced three albums between 1979 and 1985. Also at the henhouse, on a rainy May 1st in 1988, PDF funds helped launch WERU-FM, a non-profit community-supported radio station, a “voice of many voices” broadcasting from Blue Hill Mountain and still thriving today.
Taking to heart the belief in the power of music to create social change, Noel and his daughter Liz Stookey Sunde co-founded Music to Life in 2018: 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, one that values artists’ ingenuity and embraces fresh ideas across diverse genres and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Since 1978, (following PP&M’s reunion concert and nearly 5 decades of trio performances prior to Mary’s death in 2009 and most recently Peter’s passing in January of 2025) Noel’s own songwriting style has addressed world issues straight on: as in “El Salvador” and “In These Times,” and often more intimately, in “Jean Claude,” and “The Connection.” These songs are included in “Just Causes,” his 2020 CD 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.
The 87 year old ‘folkie’ (as he often refers to himself), continues to live in Blue Hill with his wife Betty Bannard Stookey, an ordained Congregational minister, former chaplain at the Northfield Mt. Hermon School 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,“ Noel has stated often in interviews, “and, whether in the context of my family, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Bodyworks band, or my long and abiding respect for my friends and fellow folkies, I am continually amazed and thankful for all of the often surprising circumstances that continue to make up my life.”
About Noel - (orig)
Having recently celebrated his 86th birthday and his 65th year as a recognized activist singer/songwriter, Noel Paul Stookey announces the release of a new musical offering on October 14 entitled NEWORLD SAMPLER. Curiously identified as being ‘hatched by a henhouse on the coast of Maine’, the CD contains three songs each from singer/songwriters John Stuart, Peter Campbell, Kevin Roth and Noel himself.
As Noel explains, the rich history of the South Blue Hill henhouse has produced an incredible arc of creativity that had its beginning in the mid 70’s (several years, of course after the birds had vacated their nests) and attracting a flurry of creative types, drawn to what eventually became Neworld Multimedia. The three other contributors to the new album are part of that artistic family; in creative proximity of one another and encouraged by an off-the-wall folk music disruptor named Stookey who still doesn't seem able to contain his eclecticism!
This issue follows the most recent release, FAZZ: NOW & THEN, a title based on a term coined by the Dave Brubeck Quartet member Paul Desmond during a tour with Peter, Paul and Mary at the midpoint of the 20th century. The FAZZ album contains 20 tracks - the major portion of them original - and all of them quintessentially Stookey.
During the past several years of the pandemic and subsequent virtual performances, Noel has lent his talents to many an online cause, and while lamenting the lack of shared same space studio time, nonetheless has managed to find ways to collaborate with singers, songwriters and other musicians across the country. His lyric contribution to "Reverence," originally a big band song written by jazz saxophonist David Mann, has resulted in a powerful gospel-like duet with famed vocalist Theresa Thomason that calls for us to recognize the interdependence of all that's living.
While acknowledging his history and the meaningful association with Peter and Mary - the trio perhaps best known for its blend of modern folk music and social activism, rallying support for safe energy, peace and civil rights at some of the most iconic events in our history, including the 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., Noel has stepped beyond the nostalgia of the folk era.
Funny, irreverently reverent, thoughtful, compassionately passionate, his voice is known all across this land, from the “Wedding Song” to “In These Times”. Nearly 2 million dollars, earned from his now-classic “Wedding Song,” were used to fund the work of other socially responsible artists, which inspired Noel in 2018, along with his daughter Liz Stookey Sunde, to launch Music to Life, a national nonprofit that connects socially conscious musicians with the training, resources and mentorship they need to realize their bold visions for community change.
Music to Life
Music to Life is a national nonprofit founded by Noel and his daughter, Liz Sunde to connect socially conscious musicians with the resources they need to realize their bold visions for community change. Through training, mentorship and an active network of community allies, Music to Life mobilizes our nation's musicians into changemakers and social entrepreneurs, serving 500+ diverse and talented musicians in 42 states and 300+ communities.
Whether judged by the subject matter of his current recorded repertoire or by virtue of his active involvement with Music to Life and artists across genres, issue areas and generations, Noel's current musical outlook continues to be fresh, optimistic and encouraging—albeit occasionally politically pointed—conceivably his best known commentary entitled “Impeachable” (based on the familiar melody of “Unforgettable”) reached viral status with the on-line community, yielding over a million Facebook/YouTube views.
Fazz:NOW&THEN
About Noel’s latest musical work, FAZZ:NOW&THEN: The 20 songs offered on the album are a reflection of how the interpretative nature of jazz has impacted Noel's creative impulses over the past 60 years. He maintains that a lyric, particularly one that tells a story, has a unique impact if presented within a chord structure that surprises (and sometimes challenges) the expectations of the listener.
As Noel says in the liner notes of the new album, “I'm a great believer in 'alternative' chords…color chords they're sometimes called. If you have an ear for musical nuance, you can readily hear the difference between an A major chord and its smoky, mysterious cousin the A major 7th.” He nonetheless admits that the application of these chordal variations should be judicious, as they may not always be appropriate to the task. Case in point: tuning backstage with Peter Yarrow one evening and being cautioned that one does not use a Major 7th while playing a Woody Guthrie tune. Even so, says Noel, “...every song is not a sing-along, and every melody deserves its own place in the sun.”
Just Causes
In March of 2021, New World Multimedia released a 15-track collection of songs related to social concerns and issues titled JUST CAUSES. The profits stemming from the sale of the album are being distributed to those charitable organizations whose programs Noel says match the individual themes of the songs.
Danny's Downs
“Danny’s Downs” contributes profits to the National Down Syndrome Congress, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum receives profits for the “Jean Claude” song, and the funding from “Not That Kind of Music” goes to Music To Life. Go to MusicToLife.org, and see the impact young singer/songwriters can have on their communities and will have with the kind of mentorship, leadership and support that Music To Life has given them.
Revolution (1x1)
Possibly the most representative tune on the album, in terms of its attitude, is “Revolution (1×1),” which benefits the spiritual renewal/social justice initiative Sojourners. One of the people on the team did a beautiful music-video combination of photos of smiling faces, encouraging faces, thumbs-up faces and crazy faces to illustrate, as the bridge says: “We’re a raggle-taggle army, got no uniform or guns. / Still we've been called by coincidence, so maybe we’re the ones / To take this revolution to the street, smile at every solitary person that we meet. / We’re gonna wave at total strangers, no matter where they’re from. / Gonna start a revolution, gonna win it one by one.”
“The theory being,” says Noel, “if there’s gonna be peace on earth, it's going to begin with each one of us. There is a thread running through much of the music on the album that speaks to the fact that if we’re gonna find the answer, we’re gonna find it through this mechanism, this life-giving force called Love… Coming out of the pandemic, I think we’re recognizing that we have an opportunity to build back better, to quote a political phrase from someone who just became president. I think we all have an opportunity to build back better, both in our personal lives and in our public lives.”
Somethin' Special
A musical offering from Noel for the 2018 holiday season is called (appropriately) SOMETHIN' SPECIAL: A NOEL PAUL STOOKEY HOLIDAY RECOLLECTION. The CD features newer versions of previously recorded tunes, unique arrangements of classic holiday songs and pieces created recently in the spirit of the holiday season. As the liner notes for these sparkling 12 tunes suggest, “... a 'recollection' can be a distant memory—suddenly recalled—or in this instance, a gathering of childhood stories unique to the holidays. Some are highly personal,” says Noel, “some are musical remembrances of Christmases in concert with Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers, but most of the songs reflect an evolving appreciation of the reason for the holiday: the birth of Christ.”
At Home
Noel and Betty moved with their three daughters to the coast of Maine over forty-five years ago. Since that time he has done the occasional home town benefit and the here-and-there in-state show but never had undertaken a concentrated tour in one season until 2012. “On that occasion, I recorded all 9 of my Maine concerts last summer—from Ogunquit to Eastport—check THAT out on a map” he says, “and though not all of the video or audio made 'prime time,’ I was able to collect 24 music videos for the DVD and (amazingly) fit all 24 songs on the CD to create AT HOME: THE MAINE TOUR package.”
The songs in the AT HOME release represent a broad range: “The Cabin Fever Waltz” (homage to the rigors of enduring the lengthened winter in Maine), a new version of “Whatshername” (a bittersweet jazz shaded reminiscence of a middle-aged man in denial), “Familia del Corazon” (a new song that speaks to the immigration issue in compassionate rather than political terms), “Wedding Song” (with the “original” lyric and a spoken introduction—DVD only) and “The Lady Says She Don't Like Jazz” (a commentary on a common misperception of the creative process).
Noel hesitates to call AT HOME a memoir, though it does span 50 years of his music. Still, he appreciates the fact that (1) it's all about the music—95% of the visual is in performance, (2) the camera work is intimate—both fixed and handheld coverage by videographers sharing the stage during performance, and (3) it's as relaxed and “Stookey” as it can get, what with no accompaniment except his guitar. “Sort of what you'd expect if we were AT HOME," he confides.
About Noel (original - to be removed)
Having recently celebrated his 84th birthday and his 63rd year as a recognized activist singer/songwriter, Noel Paul Stookey continues his contribution to America's musical history with his most recent release FAZZ:NOW&THEN. With a title based on a term coined by the Dave Brubeck Quartet member Paul Desmond during a tour with Peter, Noel and Mary at the midpoint of the 20th century, the album contains 20 tracks, the major portion of them original and all of them quintessentially Stookey.
During these past several years of the pandemic and subsequent 'virtual' performances, Noel has lent his talents to many an online cause and, while lamenting the lack of shared same-space studio time with other musicians, nonetheless has managed to find ways to collaborate with writers across the country. His lyric contribution to “Reverence”, originally a big band song written by jazz saxophonist David Mann, has resulted in a powerful gospel-like duet with famed vocalist Theresa Thomason that calls for us to recognize the interdependence of all that's living.
Noel 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, compassionately passionate, Stookey’s voice is known all across this land: from the “Wedding Song” to “In These Times.”
While acknowledging his history and the meaningful association with Peter and Mary - the trio perhaps best known for its blend of modern folk music and social activism, rallying support for safe energy, peace and civil rights at some of the most iconic events in our history—including the 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Noel Paul has stepped beyond the nostalgia of the folk era. Nearly $2 million, earned from Noel’s now-classic “Wedding Song,” were used to fund the work of other socially responsible artists, which inspired Noel, along with his daughter Liz Stookey Sunde, to launch MusicToLife in 2001, a nonprofit utilizing groundbreaking ways to bring music to life for social change through technology, entertainment, artist collaboration and education.
Whether judged by the subject matter of his current recorded repertoire or by virtue of his active involvement with the MusicToLife initiative (www.musictolife.org) linking music fans to the expression of contemporary concerns via many different artists and musical genres, Stookey's current musical outlook continues to be fresh, optimistic and encouraging – albeit occasionally politically pointed – conceivably his best known commentary entitled IMPEACHABLE (based on the familiar melody of UNFORGETTABLE) reached viral status with the on-line community, yielding over a million facebook/youtube views.
Elizabeth Bannard Stookey, Noel's high school friend and wife since 1963 has incorporated the 'family music' as part of her ONE LIGHT, MANY CANDLES (www.onelightmanycandles.org) multifaith programs – featuring readings from world spiritual leaders counter-pointed with the songs of her husband. Betty says "The spiritual and relevant nature of Noel’s music lends itself beautifully to the message of our program. His songs reflect the diversity and integrity of individual faith while seeking a global spiritual community.”