Folk singer Mary Travers dead at 72

NEW YORK, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Folk singer Mary Travers has died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut following complications from leukemia treatment, her representative said. She was 72.

The Redding, Conn., resident -- best known for being a civil-rights and anti-war activist, and a member of the musical trio Peter, Paul and Mary -- died Wednesday, her spokeswoman Heather Lylis told The New York Times.

Along with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, the Kentucky native, who was raised in New York's Greenwich Village neighborhood, recorded hit songs like "Lemon Tree," "If I Had a Hammer," "Blowin' in the Wind," "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" in the 1960s.

Although the band officially broke up in 1970, Travers, Yarrow and Stookey reunited numerous times afterward to perform.

Yarrow said in a statement to the Times Wednesday that Travers' singing style was an expression of her character, both of which were "honest and completely authentic."

"Her charisma was a barely contained nervous energy -- occasionally (and then only privately) revealed as stage fright," Stookey added in a statement to the newspaper.

Travers is survived by her fourth husband, Ethan Robbins; two daughters; a sister; and two grandchildren.