Larry Parks

Cape Breton

As a child, Larry tapped his feet on the rails of his crib to the music of Winston Fitzgerald, Angus Chisholm and many other local fiddlers that came to his home during many kitchen rackets. His first instrument was the guitar before he was seven years. By the age of twenty he had his first fiddle. Somewhere in between he picked up the mandolin and by thirty had taught himself piano. The instrument he spends the most time playing, though, is the fiddle.

Larry joined the Cape Breton Fiddlers' Association many years ago and directed the fiddlers for a while before moving to Halifax and later to Ontario for a couple of years.

It was Larry who suggested Rollie's Wharf, on the northside, would be a good place to gather for a music session, since there was already a gathering there for over a year with a group known as the Northside Fiddlers. And this year, the Thursday night sessions at Rollie's celebrate their twelfth year.