Noel Paul Stookey (born December 30, 1937) is a singer-songwriter best known as "Paul" in the trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
His best-known composition is "The Wedding Song," which charted in the early 1970s and remains popular for performance during wedding services. He wrote the song as a wedding gift for Peter Yarrow. Stookey assigned the copyright to this song to the Public Domain Foundation.
In addition to his recordings with the trio, he released a number of solo works, several albums with an ensemble called Bodyworks, and some anthologies. His post-Peter, Paul and Mary works have emphasized his Christian faith, family life, and social concerns. He was an important artist in the young Jesus music movement which would later bloom into the Contemporary Christian music industry.
He also has production credits on albums by several lesser-known singer-songwriters, including David Mallet and Gordon Bok. He was one of the founders of a record label called NeWorld Multimedia.
He remains active in the music industry, performing regularly both as a member of Peter, Paul, and Mary and as a solo act.
Though Stookey spent several years as a school-year resident of Massachusetts while his wife Betty served as Chaplain for Northfield Mount Hermon School, Noel and Betty returned full-time to their home in rural Maine in June 2005, where he records in a studio that was previously a chicken-house.
