Perhaps no name harmonizes with northwest B.C. music more than Mark Perry.
Long before Mark started making that name for himself, though, the Perry name was already well-known around the Bulkely Valley.
His dad Laurence grew up in the Okanagan on a small, modest farm and fought in the Second World War. As a veteran, Laurence was entitled to free education and followed in his father’s footsteps attending UBC and becoming a lawyer.
He married Irene, whose parents were immigrants from Russia and eastern Poland. She grew up in Kimberley, a town very similar to Smithers in the Kootenays.
When offers for jobs at law firms in Williams Lake, Smithers and a couple of other places came up, it was mom who made the call to choose Smithers because it felt like home.
Eventually, Laurence started his own firm, Perry and Company, which he grew and expanded and still thrives in Smithers under the tutelage of Mark’s brother John and now a third generation is getting in on the act. John’s son Lane was called to the bar in 2021.
Mark’s dad and the Perry family are the kind of people who make small towns work harkening to perhaps Mark’s most well-known song, “This Town” from his 1999 album View from the High Road.
This town’ll be built on the backs of the people who live here
This town’ll be built on the backs of the people who die here
This town will never disappear
This town will live on
And the town is the people and the people are the town
And the town is the people and the people are the town
Since Mark released his first album in 1990, he has been telling the stories of the Northwest infusing his lyrics with poetic glimpses of rural life, the land, the sea and the communities dear to his heart.
Now, as he gets ready to officially release his aptly named new album Glimpses (that’s 14, for anybody who’s not counting, not including the 2020 retrospective Recollections), listeners can expect more of the same, but also not.
While lyrically Glimpses is unmistakenly Mark Perry, musically it’s a bit of a departure from his previous offerings with minimal instrumentation.
“There’s no drums or bass on it,” he explained. “So, it’s kind of got a spareness and some people… will say it’s the worst thing and some people will say it’s the only good thing I’ve done and that’s, you know, that’s what you live with.
“So, it’s the folkiest kind of thing I’ve maybe ever done, but it’s got accordion and steel guitar on it. It’s kind of got some emptiness in the songs, you know, all the holes aren’t filled.”
Mark comes by the Northwest troubadour mantle honestly having been born and raised in Smithers and he can’t really see himself anywhere else.
“I leave once in a blue moon and, you know, it seems like it’s where you fit. Like a tropical beach doesn’t seem right for me,” he said.
To read his musical biography, one might think Mark would have cause to be a bit full of himself. He has recorded with such pros as Roy Forbes (Bim), opened for the great Connie Kaldor on a western Canada tour, toured in his own right with the likes of Frank Tobin (Spirit of the West), and has played some really big gigs, such as the Vancouver Folk Festival.
He does not seem the least bit prideful, though, just genuinely and humbly grateful.
“I met so many cool people over the years that I just pinch myself sometimes because it’s been a really, really cool ride,” he said.
With all of that behind him, not to mention producing one original full album roughly every two years, one might also get the impression that he was one of those full-time musicians who took on day jobs to make ends meet while dreaming of trashing hotel rooms and drinking champagne out of a supermodel’s navel.
But he was not, quite the opposite.
“I love the fact that I got support over the years from people and I’m honoured by it, but I never had any grand delusions,” he said.
Nevertheless, he has accumulated a significant and loyal fanbase and accomplished it all while having a full, 30-year career with CN Rail.
He spent those three decades almost entirely as a switchman in the Smithers rail yard.
“Basically, you sort out all the cars and put them in order,” he explained. “You put them in big blocks so other people can pick them up and you take cars out to the mill or put cars in the shop. It was kind of fun, like it was kind of like you’d have a puzzle every morning to solve.”
And on top of it, there was the family.
Mark and his wife Jane, who was a district manager for the provincial forests ministry, raised two kids.
Marie, who now goes by the stage name Mip, took to music early on and is now making a name for herself in music circles.
Matthew, the quieter one, according to Mark, was quite an accomplished athlete in basketball and hockey.
Jane also always pursued her passion for horses.
“She was always involved in all that stuff, saddle clubs, pony clubs, you know, and we raised two kids, great, great kids,” he said. “You look back, and sometimes you can’t believe you did it.
“It’s just a juggle, everything’s a juggle. I don’t even know how we did it, actually, but it worked out.”
He suggested that supporting each others’ passions made the juggling easier.
“I think if you have something that you really like to do… I think you appreciate the other person’s love of something too,” he said.
Mark is now retired with two independent children, so he has the opportunity to do a little less juggling as he pursues his passion for songwriting and performing.
In support of the new album, he will be doing a mini-tour of the Northwest with shows in Terrace March 1, Prince Rupert March 2 and Hazelton March 3 leading up to the official album launch party at the Della Herman Theatre in his hometown of Smithers on March 8.
Mark will be joined by long-time collaborators Ian Olmstead on accordion and bass, Mark Thibeault on steel guitar and guitar and Richard Jenne on drums and percussion. He said the setup gives them the flexibility to capture the sparseness of the new stuff, then kick it into high gear for selections from the back catalogue.