TORONTO - Months after his death, Paul Quarrington is still finding new ways to surprise.

The multi-hyphenate author, musician, filmmaker and playwright died of lung cancer in January. But the work is still coming. This spring will see the release of his first solo CD and a new memoir, while a documentary about his final months will air on television.

And as they survey his latest spate of creative works, those close to Quarrington continue to marvel at the friend they've lost.

"The reception, it's just overwhelming, the sense of 'thank you,' and 'I didn't know that,'" said Judith Keenan, a close confidante of Quarrington's and the producer of "Paul Quarrington: Life in Music," a documentary that will air on Saturday (Bravo, 7 p.m. ET).

"These are people talking to me -- 'I'm a high school friend of Paul's and I didn't know that about him.' Or his brother would say, 'I didn't know that about him.' They're all discovering things about this gentleman.

"I think just the way he constructed his life, it's people finding doors to walk through they didn't know existed. It's increased the value of this trifecta of products coming out at the same time."

And these final creative works exist thanks to the tireless effort Quarrington put in during the months and days that would prove to be his last.

Quarrington was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer last May, a fatal condition he would succumb to in January at the age of 56.

In between, he worked at a prodigious pace to complete his projects. Rather than being defeated by the diagnosis, he almost seemed buoyed -- in the film, he refers to it as a "gift," because the knowledge that his time was limited served as motivation to work furiously to complete a staggering career of accomplishments.

"It was funny, like anybody's reaction would be initially ?obviously, it's devastating news, and he was pretty down in the early days shortly after the diagnosis," said Martin Worthy, a fellow member of Porkbelly Futures and a friend of Quarrington's since they attended junior high together in Don Mills, Ont.

"We had lots of opportunities to sit up late and talk about it. It's funny, at one point, I said to him that anybody else in his situation might hope to begin to live with the time they've got left the sort of life that he's actually led for 40 years. And he said, 'Yeah, I really don't have many boxes next to the list that haven't been ticked off.'

"And at that point, he seemed resolved to take everything about his life and just enlarge it, blow it up bigger."

Added Bert Kish, who directed "Paul Quarrington: Life in Music": "He was like the Energizer bunny. He wouldn't stop."

During those final months, Quarrington toured relentlessly. Even the heart attack he endured during his fight with cancer couldn't keep him off the stage, as he soon performed while being fed oxygen through a tube.

Roughly half of the songs that appear on "Songs" (hitting stores June 8) were written after the diagnosis, and he deals directly with his feelings about his impending death.

On the brittle "Are You Ready," Quarrington is by turns defiant and accepting: "The night is coming, creeping oh so close/ I try to hold it off, but still I know/ It's like trying to hold back an old freight train/ Coming down on me, still, I'm not afraid."

"Hello Jim," meanwhile, is a fairly jaunty (and darkly humorous) song about meeting your maker, while "Over Yonder" was written for his daughters, Carson and Flannery. "I can tell you, certainly, some of the songs on his solo record are going to be songs that are going to haunt me and inspire me for the rest of my life," blues guitarist Colin Linden said over the phone from Nashville.

His memoir, "Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life," similarly began life before Quarrington knew that his was soon ending. The book was to examine Quarrington's lifelong involvement in music and he submitted the first draft at the end of 2008.

After the diagnosis, he returned to the book to add "new thematic material," as he put it in a summer interview with The Canadian Press.

The book revealed some new insights to even his closest friends.

"There are interesting things in the memoir about his mother dying and how he coped with that or didn't cope," said Worthy, who co-wrote the 1980 No. 1 single "Baby and the Blues" with Quarrington. "That lingered for all of his life, issues around that. They informed his behaviour. He uses music to be able to say the things that he couldn't tell people in person. And then in the course of writing that memoir, he realized how many times that he could approach doing that through music."

The documentary, then, uncovers another layer that Quarrington had guarded through his life.

Over the course of the one-hour special, both his brother, Joel, and his ex-wife discuss how private Quarrington could be. That he would allow such intimate access to these months -- cameras follow him on tour, as he jams with friends including Dan Hill and Worthy and even his children speak about their dad on camera -- served as another surprise.

"I think he was a very passionate person, I think he was a very romantic person, and somewhat sentimental, but he kept that very well-cloaked," said Kish, a friend of Quarrington's since 1997.

"He was a very loving, all those types of things. But he had a very tight lid on certain aspects of his persona. Through the course of making the film -- especially the parts where he talked about (ex-wife) Dorothy -- he expressed things that he'd never expressed before." Even Keenan, who said she dated Quarrington on and off over the past few years, saw another side to him.

"The deep meaning his family ties had to him -- he had to his family and his family to him -- was something he didn't share as much of in either of the dimensions that he and I had a relationship, professionally or otherwise," she said. "So that was very touching." Those frank interviews with Quarrington were shot in three main chunks, Keenan said. He looks remarkably healthy for the most part throughout the documentary, maintaining a sanguine demeanour and rarely hinting at any physical discomfort as his body tried to fight off the cancer.

Of course, Quarrington didn't think of it that way. In his mind, he wasn't fighting a battle with cancer.

"In a way, we made a point," Worthy said. "We never discussed his problem with cancer as a battle. We said, this is ridiculous. It's not a battle, it's not a fair fight. There's always a loser in a battle. We just thought it was a poor way to characterize it.

"So, we decided to call it a journey. And he made that journey into a parade. And it was a fantastic ride. He made cancer and death seem very insignificant."

And these last three creative contributions, if nothing else, inspired those close to him.

Keenan rekindled her interest in painting. She said that Quarrington's brother, Joel, married his long-time partner. Quarrington's editor, Keenan said, overcame a childhood fear and bought a dog.

"It sounds corny, but this is what happened watching Paul," Keenan said. "People were doing things they hadn't done, or doing things again, or doing things more intensely, as a result of watching this guy go through what he was going through. ... You actually acted on stuff. "We hope that it'll inspire people. We say that because we were inspired. It was so impressive. It didn't matter what the creative thing is, to Paul, not living that creative life on a daily basis was worse than death."

Host Of Artists At Farewell To Quarrington

Host of artists at farewell to Quarrington

'Touched, Inspired'

Mark Medley, National Post Published: Wednesday, April 14, 2010



Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2903551#ixzz0lL9brIFZ

In the celebrated comic novel King Leary, the titular character, looking back on his storied hockey career from the dreary confines of a nursing home, says that he once wanted his gravestone to read "something of a natural." Though he was far from being that conceited, those words more fittingly describe Leary's creator, the late Paul Quarrington.

A cross-section of CanLit, CanRock and CanStage luminaries gathered at The Opera House in Toronto last night to pay tribute to Mr. Quarrington, who died earlier this year at the age of 56.

The show, hosted by the soon-to-be-ex-host of As It Happens, Barbara Budd, featured an eclectic lineup of musicians, actors, and writers. The bill included National Post columnist Dave Bidini and his BidiniBand, who performed a newsonginspiredbyQuarrington's poem In The Rock Hall; Soul Stew, which acted as the evening's house band; Paul's brothers, Tony and Joel Quarrington; singer/songwriter Dan Hill, who sang a new song called It Just Hasn't Hit Me Yet; and Quarrington's band, The Porkbelly Futures, who were joined by special guests including Megan Worthy, the daughter of Mr. Quarrington's longtime musical partner, Martin Worthy.

In one of the evening's most touching moments, Mr. Quarrington's former wife, Dorothy Bennie, also took the stage, apparently for the first time ever, to perform a song she wrote in honour of her late former husband.

Other performers who were scheduled to take the stage included Juno Award-winning singer/songwriter Melanie Doane; Joe Hall, with whom Mr. Quarrington was on tour when he wrote his first book; and Blue Rodeo frontman Jim Cuddy.

The evening wasn't restricted to music. The audience was shown clips from Life in Music, a new documentary about Mr. Quarrington that will air in May. As well, some of his best-loved books were brought to life by a cast of actors, including Gordon Pinsent, who brought the house down during a riveting dramatic reading of Mr. Quarrington's novel King Leary.

"It was a very considered lineup, in the sense that we did want to actually have it reflect as many interests of Paul's as we could," said Judith Keenan, executive director of the Quarrington Arts Society, and one of the tribute's co-organizers.

It was a fitting tribute for a man whose artistic talents spanned several disciplines. Mr. Quarrington, who died on Jan. 21 after an nine-month battle with lung cancer, was a singer, songwriter, screenwriter, director, playwright, teacher and novelist. He won the Governor-General's Literary Award in 1989 for Whale Music. His last two novels, Galveston and The Ravine, were nominated for the Giller Prize. King Leary won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and, more recently, won Canada Reads, where it was defended by Mr. Bidini, who also announced a new award last night: the Paul Quarrington Memorial Award for Best North American Sports Book of the Year.

"We all were so struck ... when Paul died [by] the outpouring of gratitude and sadness and appreciation," said Quarrington friend Rebecca Campbell, of The Porkbelly Futures. "So many people spoke of how he had touched them, whether they had been up close or really far away. So the impact his art and his person had on people surprised all of us, when the outpouring came about. And so this is a gathering of a circle of people who were particularly touched and inspired and shared so much of their art and their lives with him. From his family to musical communities to theatrical communities to film communities."

The money raised from last night's event will go to the Quarrington Arts Society, which was founded in the wake of his death to provide funding for multi-disciplinary artists.

"The gathering itself, I think, is a manifestation of the essence of the man," Ms. Campbell said. "And we're all left to carry his legacy."

Mr. Quarrington's memoir, Cigar Box Banjo, and a solo album, The Songs, will be released next month.

mmedley@nationalpost.com



Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2903551#ixzz0lL9pZDN7

Tribute to Paul Quarrington: A Live Event Celebration with Music, Theatre, Literature, Magic and Sport

Date                Tuesday April 13, 2010
Doors              7:00 pm
Place               The Opera House, 735 Queen Street East, one block east of Broadview

Here's a sneak peek at the musicians' program to be presented during this stellar evening.  They will be joining a roster of talent including Baldini the Magician, the Quarrington family, and interpretations of Paul's works of literature adapted for the stage.

Porkbelly Futures is Martin Worthy on drums and vocals, Stuart Laughton on guitars, mandolin, harmonica, pedal steel, trumpet, and vocals, Teddy Leonard on guitar, Chas Elliott on bass, Megan Worthy on vocals, and Rebecca Campbell on vocals, percussion, melodica, and guitar. David Gray will also join them. The band will perform familiar Porkbelly favourites, plus “Are You Ready”  with guest Dan Hill; it’s a song co-written by Paul, Martin Worthy and Dan this past year.  The song represents a central theme in the documentary "Paul Quarrington: Life in Music" to premiere on CTV Bravo May 30, 2010.

Bidiniband is Dave Bidini on vocals and acoustic guitar, Paul Linklater on vocals and guitar, Doug Friesen on bass, and Don Kerr on drums and vocals. Dave will begin by announcing the launch of a new sports writing award in Paul's name. (Remember Bidini's championing of Paul's hockey classic, King Leary, to win CBC's Canada Reads in 2008!) One of Dave's songs will be the premiere of his setting of Paul's poem, “In the Rock Hall.”

Dan Hill will perform solo. He's premiering a song about Paul that he's recording in Nashville right now – it’s called “It Just Hasn’t Hit Me Yet”   

Quarrington brothers, Joel and Tony, will perform together. Porkbelly futures will join them to perform a new song of Tony's that he wrote for Paul. 

Soul Stew will be the “house band” accompanying a number of guests through the evening.  Joe Hall will play with Tony Quarrington; Dorothy Bennie will sing a tune that she wrote for Paul; Melanie Doane will play fiddle, she'll sing with Rebecca Campbell and will be playing with other ensembles over the course of the night.  Jim Cuddy will get everyone up to join him and guests Anne Lindsay on fiddle and Amy Laing on cello.

Tickets for the event are still available but selling fast!  To order in advance $35 + $3 Service, more at the door), please visit the TicketBreak website or Paul Quarrington's website for more program details.