David Roy Parsons "Time And Travel" (2011)

I love receiving mail, so you can imagine my delight when I found a parcel waiting outside my door when I was about to enter a snowstorm.  I opened it at once to find that my copy of David Roy Parsons' fourth album Time And Travel (2011) had safely arrived.  Time And Travel is a collection of songs written from the inspiration of Wells, B.C., Ottawa’s Chateau Laffeyette, Vancouver’s Railway Club, Vancouver’s Our Lady of Constant Sorrow School, Guatemala, Botswana and the people who inhabit these places.  While a wide geographical landscape inspired Time And Travel, the sounds from this album makes me crave a rural destination.

The storytelling of David Roy Parsons makes me feel as if I’m in a cozy bar or on a road trip through Canada’s interior, tracing the landscape of Parsons’ songs.  On the first track “Joel And Elsie And The Ballad Of The Giant Radish,” the fairytale-like sounds of a flute whirl through the garden of the ballad.  Parsons’ voice is in conversation with supporting female vocals (Karyn Ellis) as they play the parts of Joel and Elsie, a couple sharing stories about growing the best vegetables they can for one another.  This track features shakers, congas and an accordion that together lend a more mysterious sound to Parsons’ music.   Time And Travel features these more eclectic sounds with those from typical bluegrass instrumentation-viola, banjo, mandolin, and the slide guitar.

In “The Chateau Laffeyette,” inspired by one of the oldest still operating bars in North America, Parsons sings a country song of the bar’s place in Ottawa’s history, those who frequent it as well as his own experiences there playing music, sometimes getting money, sometimes getting black eyes.  Each song is crafted in rhymes and consistently melodic.  I’m a sucker for the slide guitar and the pedal steel guitar, so this album is a real treat for me.  The more I listen to this album, the fonder I grow of it.  “Shopping Girl Friend Blues” is one of my favourite tracks.  The sweetness of the banjo, slide guitar and clarinet used in this song remind me of songs from the young Daniel Johnston. 

Parsons acknowledges all the people and places that inspired him in detail on the back cover of his C.D.  His sense of community travels everywhere he does and is as evident here as it is in his honest storytelling.  

David Roy Parsons: http://www.myspace.com/davidroyparsons

Daniel Johnston: http://www.hihowareyou.com/