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HALIFAX, NS
As a follow up to his inspirational Remembrance Day tribute song, ‘A Pittance of Time’, Terry Kelly’s latest 13-track musical offering, ‘Always There’, celebrates those who have served as well as those who are now serving their country. ‘Always There’, produced by Terry Kelly and Paul Mills, will be released on June 6th, D-Day – and will feature track # 2, ‘They’re Coming Home’.
“The collection of music in this project sings of how things were, how things are, how they could be, and how some things never change regardless of the learning opportunities placed right before the eyes of humankind”, said Kelly
“All of the original songs were born of and inspired by, “A Pittance of Time”, which is included among these tracks. Since I wrote that song, I’ve met, spoken to and heard from thousands of service men and women and their families around the globe who have planted seeds for songs with me as a result of how, “A Pittance of Time”, has moved them in one way or another.”
“I have also chosen and recorded songs not written by me that are fun-filled, hopeful, provocative, powerful, earth-moving, or a melody that is light and lifting or fills the heart with anger, despair or longing. I’ve been humbly moved to extend the reach of these songs from the genius of another artist with my voice to you.”
Upcoming June releases of ‘Always There’ will be as part of the ‘Pipes of War’ – a remembrance and tribute to D-Day concert at the deCoste Centre in Pictou, NS on June 6th; a feature on CBC’s Atlantic Airwaves on June 8th; and at the St. John’s convention Centre during The Atlantic Maple Leaf Tribute Dinner for Newfoundland & Labrador on June 27th. Additional release dates across the country will be posted on Terry’s website schedule
HALIFAX, NS – Terry Kelly will be taking a break this week from his scheduled R & R time, as he has accepted an invitation from the Royal Canadian Navy to perform at the naming of the Royal Canadian Navy Monument in Ottawa (Richmond Landing) at 3:00 PM on May 3rd.
Terry, accompanied by the Stadacona Band, will perform “Wherever there is Water”, an original piece written by Terry in 2010 to help commemorate the Canadian Navy’s 100th Anniversary.
“Wherever there is Water” will be included on Terry’s next full-length recording which is scheduled for a fall release.
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Terry Kelly’s passion for life has gained him international recognition as an award-winning singer/songwriter, a renowned motivational speaker, an accomplished athlete, and a consummate entertainer.
As a musician, this Newfoundland native has released six full-length recordings, resulting in seven East Coast Music Awards and nominations for four Canadian Country Music Awards and a JUNO. Terry has shared the stage with Symphony Orchestras, and has performed his original music nationally as well as in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and for the troops in Afghanistan. He is most recognized for his inspirational song “A Pittance of Time”.
Terry’s motivational presentations, “We Can Do Anything” and “The Power of the Dream”, are based on his own life experiences and the challenges he has overcome – and have inspired students, parents, teachers, government and corporate employees throughout North America.
Terry is a recipient of the King Clancy Award and has Honorary Doctorates in Civil Laws and in Fine Arts from the University of Kings College and Saint Mary’s University, respectively. He has received the Canadian Country Music Association’s Humanitarian Award; and has been appointed to the Order of Canada.
In the athletic field, Terry has distinguished himself as the third blind person in the world to run the mile in under five minutes.
From school classrooms to corporate boardrooms, from the recording studio to international conferences, from national radio shows to the pilot seat of an aircraft, from the controls of a Seadoo to the running of a sub-five-minute mile, Terry Kelly has been there. He has used his life experiences to touch the hearts of many and to motivate tens of thousands to live their lives to the fullest and, by his example, overcome personal challenges of all types.
For additional information or interviews, please contact:
Tony Kelly
Email: tony @terry-kelly.com
Kelly takes “A Pittance of Time” to Washington, DC
HALIFAX, NS
This November 11th, Terry Kelly is personally taking “A Pittance of Time” to Washington, DC to bring an additional level of reverence to the Canadian Embassy’s Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Terry Kelly’s “A Pittance of Time” song has been played by every radio format, including talk radio! The video has been presented on TV news programs, including the national broadcast from Parliament Hill, and has been viewed around the world millions of times via the internet over the past nine years.
Every October through to November 11th, Terry-Kelly.com receives upwards of three-quarters of a million hits! Thousands of schools, businesses, churches, military bases, cadet corps, Beaver, Cub, Scout, and Girl Guide troops pay tribute to our veterans, our fallen, and the families left at home, with Kelly’s song, “A Pittance of Time”.
“As one might imagine, I’m humbled, honoured, and thrilled to have been invited to the Canadian Embassy in Washington to participate in the Remembrance Day Ceremony”, said Kelly. “I will, of course, be remembering all of our veterans and fallen of earlier wars and conflicts, along with those of the present. I will also honour the most recent sacrifice made by Master Corporal Byron Greff, who was based in Edmonton with the reconnaissance platoon of the 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and died on October 29, 2011, in Kabul, when the Rhino he was travelling in was rammed by an explosives-packed car”.
‘My responsibility is to help other people, adults and young people, come to discover the gifts they don’t know they have’
By Bill Carr
Terry Kelly has been a friend of mine for a number of years. He has always startled me with his unbridled enthusiasm for life and laughter and song; coupled with a true sense of concern for the needs of those around him. He sees what many so-called “sighted people” often miss.
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A mere two minutes for our war veterans. It’s so little for so much
by ROY MacGREGOR
The Globe and Mail
He just got out of bed on the wrong side of the world. He is jetlagged and tired, but still he wants to talk about his great dream.
Terry Kelly sees the entire country – all of Canada – coming to a complete stop. Cars pulling over on the highways, elevators coming to a halt, coffee shops going quiet, classes shutting down, even passenger jets falling silent as they float through Canadian airspace.
For two minutes, that’s all.
As Terry Kelly says and sings, A Pittance of Time.
The Canadian entertainer is in Wellington, New Zealand, invited there by that country’s equivalent of the Canadian Legion, and this week he will sing his song in a 34,000-seat rugby stadium before what is certain to be the largest audience of his career.
It is a song that was intended as a rant, a little “venting” by the blind singer-songwriter concerning an incident he overheard seven years ago this coming week in a Shoppers Drug Mart in Dartmouth, just across the harbour from his home in Halifax.
He was in the store the morning of Nov. 11, 1999, when an announcement came over the public address system that the store would be following the legion’s “two minutes of silence” initiative and fall quiet at 11 a.m. to honour those who had fought, and often died, for their country.
At the 11th hour, the store went quiet. Clerks stopped stocking shelves. Cashiers stepped back from their registers. Shoppers paused and lowered their heads.
Except for one man.
He was there with his young daughter, and he was in a hurry.
He demanded a clerk’s attention. He insisted on going through the cash. He was loud and obnoxious and destroyed all hope of reflection for everyone within his sound range.
When the man completed his purchase, he hustled his little girl out the doors, but not before Terry Kelly – whose superb hearing compensates for his lack of sight – picked up her plaintive “Daddy – that was embarrassing!” as the doors swung back closed and, finally, allowed the store to fall quiet.
Outraged, Kelly went home, sat down with his guitar, and slowly worked out a tune and words:
“They fought and some died for their homeland
They fought and some died now it’s our land
Look at his little child, there’s no fear in her eyes
Could he not show respect for other dads who have died?
“Take two minutes, would you mind?
It’s a pittance of time
For the boys and the girls who went over
In peace may they rest, may we never forget why they died.
It’s a pittance of time . . .”
In the song, Kelly unleashed his anger (“God forgive me for wanting to strike him”) and celebrated the Canadian soldier, from those who sent letters back from the Great War to those who today send e-mails home from Afghanistan. He sang about the swift passage of time (“May we never forget our young become vets”) and about the significance of that small moment we mark at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
A Pittance of Time.
Warren Sonoda, a Toronto filmmaker, took the song and produced a remarkable video of Kelly performing in a Shoppers Drug Mart while the ignorant young man interrupts the silence. As the man rails at a bewildered clerk, others in the store stare in shock, including his upset daughter. And then – in a scene reminiscent of the parting of the cornstalks in Field of Dreams – a parade of veterans slowly emerges into sharp focus. Backs stiff, heads held high, shoulders squared, steps sometimes hobbled – the veterans, accompanied by soldiers from various eras, keep moving through the store until, finally, the obnoxious young man realizes what he has been disrupting.
It is a most powerful video and has moved everyone from elementary-school children to hardened Canadian senior officers to tears. It will play on the scoreboard of the Wellington rugby arena as Terry Kelly sings this week.
“It’s all about respect,” he says.
If his dream were to come true, he would have this entire country come to a stop on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. Two minutes where every Canadian pauses – even those anxious to get through the checkout counter – and thinks about those who have worn the country’s uniform.
Kelly himself once dreamed of this life – he wanted to be in the air force and fly – but he and three siblings had an inherited condition that left him totally blind and his siblings with partial vision. He was sent from St. John’s to Nova Scotia to attend a special school for the blind. There he lived with “house parents” who came from the military, and they taught him to be respectful, to be disciplined, and to believe in yourself.
“For me,” he says, “it was a blessing.”
He never did get to fly in the air force, of course. But he has served his country, all the same.
Halifax, N.S.
Singer / songwriter Terry Kelly, in partnership with Cancer Care Nova Scotia, launched today, Celebrate Life, an original song written and performed by Terry Kelly, to honour and recognize those whose lives have been affected by cancer.
The themes Terry explores in Celebrate Life are in keeping with his own thinking. “I am grateful for the gift of gratitude,” said Terry. “I am grateful for the life that I have lived, for the life that I am living and for whatever life I have left to live. I am especially grateful for the loved ones and acquaintances that have shared are sharing and have yet to share the joys and sorrows of the world with me. I am also grateful for the gift of choice, to choose between celebrating life or not.”
“The Celebrate Life song is about survivorship, but it embraces the full range of emotion we all work through when we learn someone close to us has cancer,” said Dr. Andrew Padmos, Commissioner, Cancer Care Nova Scotia. “It also speaks to the great strength and resolve of cancer patients, their family and friends in pulling together and fighting the disease by taking an active role in their treatment, getting answers to their questions to allay fears and truly appreciating each and every moment and day they have together. Terry, a cancer survivor himself, has successfully captured the essence of these many emotions.”
Commissioned by Cancer Care Nova Scotia, Celebrate Life builds on the survivorship theme and recognizes the strength of community, friendship, faith and love in the face of challenge. Celebrate Life was written for Cancer Care Nova Scotia’s signature event to mark National Cancer Survivors Day. Terry Kelly will sing the song at the event, Celebrate Life 2006, on Sunday, June 4 at Pier 21 in Halifax.
Cancer Care Nova Scotia is a program of the Department of Health, created to reduce the burden of cancer on individuals, families and the health care system through prevention, screening, education and research.
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