It’s been a quarter century since David Parry left us too early, at the age of 52 in 1995. As a memento of his invaluable contribution to the band, we assembled this collection of songs and monologues from a variety of concert recordings from over the years. We feel it gives a good sense of both David and the band at that time.

Notes for individual tracks may be found on the corresponding track pages.

Funds raised by the sale of this album will make their way, via Caroline Parry, to this project: www.qaggiavuut.ca/en/home

'God bless this world. Whatever she hath done, except when awful long, I found it good. So write before I die “'E Liked It All!”
Kipling: Sestina of the Tramp Royal


David Parry 1942-1995

Singer, storyteller, actor, director, morris dancer, musician, teacher and member of The Friends of Fiddler's Green, David Parry died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Ottawa on June 13th, 1995 a few days before his 53rd birthday.

Born and raised in London, England and married in India, David made Ontario, first Toronto and latterly Ottawa, his home for his last two decades. His formal credentials included a Ph.D. in Medieval Drama and he spent many years as an academic in that field, but he was never one to make distinctions between work and pleasure, and his training and talent inevitably spilled out into the non-academic arts community. He acted in and directed countless amateur and professional productions, ranging from the enormous York Cycle of Mystery Plays to Shakespeare and to Gilbert and Sullivan and, latterly, made his living as director of the successful and innovative live interpretation program at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

But David's biggest creative passions were undoubtedly singing and story-telling. He knew more songs than anyone I had ever met and had a prodigious ability, born no doubt from a love of language and an actor's training, to absorb stories and songs, tuck them away in some corner of his vast memory, and then bring them forth at will. This he would do on a concert stage, in the pub after a long day's morris dancing with the Toronto Morris Men, in the supermarket, on the elevator, or whenever or wherever the urge took him. His extrovert enthusiasm for singing went way beyond the bounds of convention; he was happy to sing anywhere, anytime, just for the joy of it. And people loved him for that.

As those of us who sang and played with him quickly found out, David was a man of the moment. He did not, I think, like to plan; was fairly ambivalent about rehearsal, and generally liked to deal with life and performance as it encountered him, rather than before. His tendency to give his all to the issue of the moment made him constantly, and exasperatingly, late, but his enthusiasm and talent for performing and his vast resource of songs and stories, not to mention a fine voice and peerless skill at delivering good words, made it a joy to share stages with him. David Parry was a big-hearted man who lived life uncautiously and to the full. He would not have wanted people to mourn him but to remember and celebrate.

Ian Robb

(First published in Sing Out! Magazine. Reprinted by permission)