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December 27, 2017
Hugh Bowden
EntertainmentLifestyle
BLUE HILL — One might think that, as he closes in on his 80th birthday, Noel Paul Stookey would be content to kick back, relax and take a contemplative view of a musical career that has spanned six decades.
But on a November afternoon, sitting in the kitchen of his South Blue Hill home with a guitar in hand and both voice and fingers still in good form, Stookey observed that “the harsh reality of our political climate” still cries out for the sort of resistance that has been an integral part of his music since the protest songs of the 1960s when he arrived on the folk music scene as one-third of Peter, Paul and Mary.
And now, when faced with “the bizarre results of the 2016 election,” he’s more than ready to provide that resistance. Stookey says the fact that his music has political perspective “is part of a larger evolution that began when I went to Greenwich Village in the ’60s and discovered that music, while entertaining and perhaps inspiring, could also be informative. I feel a responsibility to my neighbors to articulate what many of them may be feeling but don’t have a musical platform.”
Stookey has just released a four-song compact disc titled “summerfallwinterspring” that includes a song loosely designated for each season. Two of the CD’s songs are about as politically topical as it gets.