Cards on the table: I knew going it that there was no way I'd not love this album. That said, I'm also really glad that I don't have to hold any reservations in my praise as it is truly a beautiful gift of art. Richard Reed Parry has shared about his meeting Dallas Good for the first time at the 2008 Dawson City Music Festival where they were randomly paired for a collaborative workshop. Thus began a deep friendship and musical partnership. I can only imagine the depth of their friendship hinted at by the sweet and intimate photo of Dallas assisting Richard in knotting his tie.
Parry and Good were writing and recording the songs that make up this album when Good died unexpectedly in February, 2022 at the age of 48. The announcement of his death stated that Dallas had died of "natrual causes while under doctor's care for a coronary illness".
His sudden and unexpected death was a huge shock and loss to the Canadian music community as well as his many fans throughout the world. I first became aware of Good when I had a night off from the Zen Temple in Toronto and saw The Sadies play a local club. The Sadies are often described as an "alt-country" band, but they cross genres including punk, traditional, surf rock, and country. Besides his work with The Sadies, Good collaborated with many other artists including Kurt Vile, Neko Case, Neil Young, and Jad Fair... you can hardly imagine a more diverse group of musicians. And the tribute to Good upon his death from people like Patti Smith, Robyn Hitchcock, Ron Sexmith and many others show the respect he had earned over his career.
Richard Reed Parry is perhaps most known as a member of Arcade Fire and Bell Orchestre, but he has also contributed to albums by The National, Little Scream, and Islands among others. His chamber work includes commissions from Kronos Quartet and his Music For Heart and Breath. He has also written film scores for The Nest, Eileen, The Iron Claw, and The Actor.
And now, four years after Good's death, Parry finished the LP they were working on and it was released on this past Record Store Day. It's one of those albums that, as much as I loved it upon the first listening, it has only grown deeper and more sonically and lyrically rewarding with each listen.
I won't be giving a song-by-song commentary, but just a few notes. The album begins with the shimmering "Alone Alone" which integrates an intimacy with an almost orchestral lushness that sets the tone for the album. At times throughout the LP I had the same feeling I had when Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released Skeleton Tree after the death of Cave's son in that the lyrics to several of the songs seem almost premonitory. Loss and grieving seems to permeate the songs. After all, "alone" is repeated 13 times in the first song, "Echo The Part" a country-ish tune ends each verse with "It falls apart". "The Brightest Light", a sweet love song that begins "The brightest light I've ever seen/Was when we closed our eyes together/I should have held you in my arms forever/Now you're gone, I can't go on with only me." Of course, the message of this album, a work of love is evidence itself in its existence that we do go on as does the memory of those we lose.
Side Two opens with "Hope I Dream Again" which -- to my mind -- recalls the sound of The Zombies' Odessey and Oracle with its echoey jangling tonality. The lyric echoes the concerns of loss, time, and memory and then it's followed by "Are You Gone (When You're Gone)". Unlike the other songs I've mentioned, this one was finished after Good's death and while he had contributed to the music, the lyric is co-written by Parry and his wife, Laurel Sprengelmeyer who is a songwriter and musician who records as Little Scream. I may be reading into this but the opening verse sounds like it could be about the aftermath of Good's death: "Everybody's staring at the empty space/Watching the wind blow through/Everybody's hopin' for the door to open/Listening to the sound of you" and later in the song we hear "Tell me now, brother, how am I gonna find/Anyone who sings like you?" Of course, I would say that the very fact that I am here listening to this music is the true answer to the question posed by the song's title. Buddhism tells me that when someone is gone they are gone and not gone. So is Good, or any of those we have loved who have passed gone? We ache because their physical presence is gone. But their memory remains with us and in this case, the music too!
Neko Case wrote the lyric for "The Hole In The Wall" which is based upon a traditional instrumental folk tune that Parry's father's band, The Friends of Fiddler's Green used to play and that Dallas insisted they record. It's a most personal recollection of her time with Dallas beginning with her singing "How I miss those days with you/Of coloured lights and bright faces/We came and went with streetcars/Shouldering guitars" and goes on to speak of her meeting his family and time spent after a shows "high on ideas/And cigarettes and downstairs pizza". It's a beautiful reminiscence that again shows how the art that is personal and real is the most universal in its humanity.
The album closes with "Not In This World" with a lyric written by Good, Parry, and Sprengelmeyer. Again, personal reminiscence is there with a mention of Parry and Good meeting at the Dawson City Festival and singing "All I Have To Do Is Dream" together. The first time I heard the chorus, "Not in this world/Not in This world" sung by something like 500 friends and fans who responded to a call from Parry to contribute their voices as tribute to Good I admit, tears came to my eyes. This song and the whole album is so clearly a work of love and friendship, of community and thus it's so appropriate that so many voices are here at the conclusion. I offer deep gratitude to Parry for inviting us to contribute our voices. He has made a deeply moving record... yes, of music, but also of a friendship, a collaboration, an artist.
This image of Dallas Good is made up of the 500 or so folk who contributed their voice to the chorus of "Not In This World"
