catalog number: 1473

 "Moving" is a particularly apt title for this volume. And that trunk on the cover is probably where Peter, Paul and Mary keep their magic, for they've already moved into a million hearts and show no signs of ending the spell.

 By now most of us have seen them; on television, at a club or, best of all, in concert. They arrive on any stage like a breath of fresh air and, during the course of their program, explore a great variety of emotions. In each lyrical instance, what's more, the emotion is explored with a depth of feeling and understanding 'til now unheard-of in popular music. Which is why Peter, Paul and Mary are fast-becoming entertainment's foremost exponents of a special musical experience Judy Garland has called "pow". Audiences seem to realize they're being offered more than just simple amusement. Rather than killing time, they're seeing and hearing it brought to life. Which is, after all, what entertainment used to be about.

 And these same audiences are frequently moved to healthy laughter, another important aspect of the Peter, Paul and Mary experience. There's plenty of opportunity to laugh at ourselves in their comedy vignettes, but forget the nervous titters of the "sick" comic syndrome. These bright fantasies are completely forthright and delightfully Chaplinesque. The crowd is very often just one big teeth.

 Being funny is something the kids haven't got around to you records, though. And with good reason. Today's entertainment world is too much with "performing" groups whose recorded efforts are not worth the wax, or "recording" groups whose idea of a concert is to stand limply on a stage waving their mouths in time to their record. Peter, Paul and Mary are a "performing" group in the real sense of that adjective, and humor is a little something-extra you get when you see them in person.

 Recording, however, continues to be a serious business. No one has been able to sell these three on kettle drums and chimes. Without exception, they take a song and look it right in the ear, leaving all extraneous noises and ideas to the rest of popular music. Their posture is serious and their attention as absolute. Folk songs are taken in hand and elevated to a new level of excitement. Excellent examples of that unique P,P&M excitement herein are "Flora" and "Morning Train". Seldom performed songs like "A 'Soalin" and "Old Coat" lose none of their fragile dignity when seen through the very special P,P&M lens as they are here. Which fact above all others demonstrates the artistic maturity of these youthful performers. And here and there an original, or "written" song is rendered, and immediately validated by their musical sincerity. An eminent folklorist was recently complaining to Pete Seeger that young folksingers today are writing too many new songs in lieu of perpetuating the old. Pete replied "Don't interfere with the folk process!" To which "folk process" I submit the importance of Peter, Paul and Mary. For, while they are already this country's signally important popularizers of folk music, their serious interpretations of folk classics command the respect of the idiom's most inveterate critics.

 This album represents love's labor got on tape; you can sense that easily. And suggested throughout each song is another kind of moving: continuous growth. The voices, the instrumental work are exacting and pure. Self- consciousness has been dealt with. Purpose is sweet, and often deeply moving, in the continued absence of frill.

 Peter Yarrow says simply "We're urban folksingers," by which he must mean one needn't wear bluejeans to sing blue grass with authority. Paul Stookey adds, "We've discovered understatement," of which truth there are several eloquent examples on this disc. "We've found some beautiful things to be had from singing," says Mary Travers, perhaps not realizing that they're surely given back just as much as they've found.

 And here you have it: Peter, Paul and Mary, Part Two. The second installment in an important new quality of music. Judging by the acclaim their first album continues to receive (old hearts as well as young hold it dear), not since the Swing Era has the American musical appetite been so thoroughly whetted. You already know there's great charm, wit and vivacity in Peter, Paul and Mary's stage presence. Now gain the very worthwhile experience of this, their second album, and discover for yourself that beneath such wonderful frosting, there's really quite a cake.

 -JOHN COURT

• SETTLE DOWN
• GONE THE RAINBOW
• FLORA
• PRETTY MARY
• PUFF, THE MAGIC DRAGON
• THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
• MAN COME INTO EGYPT
• OLD COAT
• TINY SPARROW
• BIG BOAT
• MORNING TRAIN
• A SOALIN'