“It was great, Judith. Or at least, I hear it was. I was stranded on Fogo Island!
But people were very moved by it and were grateful to have the opportunity to
honour Paul. Steve Brunt and I also had a Paul moment on stage–we put out
the fishing rod he used last year…I read a bit from the book about Des Walsh
and then we played the Friendly song–which got stuck in the middle and stopped!
Then picked up again. Quite a moment! hope your summer was/is great. xoxo”

Here’s the Western Star review of the event too >>

Canadian author and musician remembered at Woody Point Writers festival
Published on August 24th by Katherine Hudson

Stephen Brunt and Shelagh Rogers at Writers at Woody Point Festival

Stephen Brunt and Shelagh Rogers seen on Saturday August 21, 2010

Special Features

• MUSIC VIDEOS including CLAIRE by The Rheostatics; HEY, HOLLYWOOD by Paul Quarrington; ARE YOU READY performed by Sharon Riley and Faith Chorale
• SHORT FILMS including the award-winning  PAVANE directed by Paul Quarrington; plus ANGEL TAKES ALL and SEVENTH SEAL REDUX
• INTERVIEWS by MARGARET ATWOOD, PAUL GROSS, JOHN KRIZANC, ALISTAIR MACLEOD, NINO RICCI plus a conversation with Booker Prize winning author RODDY DOYLE
• PHOTO GALLERIES from behind the scenes MAKING LIFE IN MUSIC, intimate PORTRAITS OF AN ARTIST and an exclusive collection illustrating Quarrington’s last book, CIGAR BOX BANJO

The DVD can be ordered through Producer Judith Keenan using PayPal by Email.
Paul Quarrington Life in Music DVD w/ Special Features
$20 CAD plus HST includes shipping within Canada

ABOUT THE FILM >> Paul Quarrington Life in Music

Director Bert Kish has done a masterful job revealing the inner life and work of this renaissance artist – writer, teacher, musician, filmmaker – delivering both humourous and poignant insights into what it takes to live a creative life.

… funny, defiant and moving… – James Reaney, QMI Agency

… A fascinating look at an eclectic artist whose impending death led him to embrace both his life and his art.
 – TV Week

… the artist’s last year of life was his greatest work. - The Globe and Mail

… a fitting send-off tribute to a Canadian great – National Post

… one of our country’s leading artists – Calgary Herald

The DVD will be available at each of the screening events taking place this coming fall – subscribe to the RSS feed for this site for updates!

Leacock Summer Festival, Orillia – Sun. July 25

Haliburton Forest Festival - Sat. Aug. 21

Thin Air: Winnipeg Writers Festival – Sat. Sep 25

WordFest: Banff-Calgary Intl Writers Festival – Sat. Oct 16 & Sun. Oct 17

Vancouver International Writers Festival – Fri. Oct 22

Paul Quarrington The Songs (CD) and Cigar Box Banjo (book) will also be available at each venue.   More screenings across the country to be announced soon!

Paul Quarrington Life in Music

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Yours in geekdom-groupie-ness

Judith

Eclectic, hilarious, and endearingly frank, Cigar Box Banjo tracks a life lived in music and words. Quarrington ruminates on the bands of his childhood; his restless youth, playing bass with the cult band Joe Hall and the Continental Drift; and his incarnation, in middle age, as rhythm guitarist and singer with the band Porkbelly Futures. Ranging through rock’n’roll, the blues, folk, country, and soul, he explores how songs are made and why they affect us so profoundly.

Songwriting gave him a way to take in his own experience, Quarrington tells us—road trips, bad whisky, true love, love gone wrong—and music becomes his mainstay after the Dread Diagnosis. Some people with a terminal illness find mountains to climb; Quarrington decides to go out singing. On stage, at sea, and in studios from Newfoundland to Nashville, he celebrates his last year on the planet.

Enhanced CD includes three new Quarrington solo music tracks and first release of “Hey, Hollywood” music video as well as the official trailer for the documentary feature “Paul Quarrington: Life in Music.”

Read an excerpt and find out more on Greystone Books website

Through this film, Paul gives us a rare and insightful glimpse into the inner workings of an artist in the act of creating. As he writes, records and performs, you see the heart and soul of a man able to express in music deeply personal issues. We witness the artist, and the man, reach for a resolution to the question that we will all face when our time comes, “what would you do?”

What unfolds is a laugh-out-loud funny, compelling, warm and enlightening story – a journey woven around music, bearing witness to the power of song to elevate, encapsulate and explain the emotions that poured into this artist’s creative endeavors. His story will inspire every viewer to look at life a bit differently – to engage and to be present as if life were to end tomorrow. It is a story of friendship and community – of immersing oneself in the redemptive powers of an audience to find solace and validation.

As a teacher, Paul would always tell students to write about what makes them uncomfortable – to be unafraid of the subject matter. With much of the music in this film written and recorded post-diagnosis, the process of coming to terms plays itself out musically. “All the Stars” – a hauntingly beautiful ballad, tells of one left behind, while “Are You Ready,” written expressly for the film, pulls all that has transpired into a deceptively simple lyric whose impact is made clear in the powerful and surprising denouement.

On screen conversations with some of the most important people in Quarrington’s life amplify the inspiring message, including longtime friend and bandmate Martin Worthy, Roddy Doyle, Dave Bidini, Wayson Choy, brothers Joel Quarrington and Tony Quarrington, daughters Carson and Flannery and their mother Dorothy Bennie. Comments by Nick Jennings and Martin Levin provide context and threaded throughout are live performances by Paul, his band Porkbelly Futures, Dan Hill, Joe Hall, Roberto Occhipinti and many more musical guests.

Producer Judith Keenan, Director Bert Kish and Editor Caroline Christie have done a masterful job of drawing the viewer into the life and work of this Renaissance artist, a gift from the man we finally get to know – the author, musician, teacher, father and friend – Paul Quarrington.

PAUL QUARRINGTON: LIFE IN MUSIC
A Feature Documentary Film
Produced by Judith Keenan, BookShorts Inc., Director Bert Kish

BRAVO! TV Broadcast Dates
Saturday, May 29 at 7pm EDT and Sunday, May 30 at 6pm EDT

DVD Available
June 2010

National Screening Tour
September – October 2010

In the January 9th edition of the Globe & Mail, Martin Levin listed the top 10 must reads for 2010. Of Paul Quarrington’s upcoming Cigar Box Banjo he writes, “…the writer and musician extraordinaire recounts a life experienced from inside the music…”

To read Levin’s full article on the Globe & Mail website, click here.

Paul Quarrington: On Mountains and Mortality

When last you heard from this correspondent, I was waxing poetical about mountains; specifically, the Torngats in Northern Labrador, which are amongst the oldest on the planet. I suggested that people who have received a very dire Diagnosis often think about mountains. Those with vestiges of health and energy sometimes even clamber up the blighters, perhaps because (to paraphrase and expand upon something said by George Mallory) the mountains are there, and very shortly the climbers will no longer be so. Mountains make good launching pads-for rumination about mortality, speculation about the afterlife, vaulting into the unknown.

From The National Post, December 4, 2009. For the full article, go to http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2304208