The Reverend Dr. Barry Davies, who directed the Kingston Faculty Chapel Choir for greater than a decade starting within the mid-Fifties, has died. A pillar of each musical and non secular life in Jamaica and later within the U.S., Dr. Davies handed away peacefully at house in Palm Coast, Florida, on June 1, simply days after celebrating his 96th birthday on Could 29, 2025.
He’s being remembered for his wide-ranging skills and beneficiant coronary heart. Over the course of a outstanding life, Rev. Dr. Davies wore many hats: instructor, choir director, radio and tv host (together with the beloved Kids’s Nook), music critic, administrator on the Jamaica Faculty of Music, and finally, Presbyterian minister.
Born in 1929 in Dudley, Worcestershire, England, Davies started life within the industrial Midlands however adopted a calling that took him throughout continents and cultures. His years within the West Indies—principally in Jamaica but in addition on a number of of the Bahamian “household islands” after 1976—fashioned a defining chapter. It was there he met and married his Jamaican-born spouse, Laodice Dooley, who predeceased him. The couple shared over 40 years of marriage grounded in love, music, and religion. He was the daddy of 4 youngsters and a grandfather to a few.
Greatest identified to many Jamaicans as co-host of Kids’s Nook alongside Erica Allen, Davies contributed as a instructor, musician, radio and tv presenter, music critic, and director of the Jamaica Faculty of Music. His tenure as director of the Kingston Faculty Chapel Choir from 1956 to 1967, in the course of the management of Bishop Percival Gibson, noticed the choir reworked right into a nationally acknowledged live performance choir—the primary of its form amongst Jamaican excessive faculties. Below his management, the choir made public recordings and have become the primary within the West Indies to be designated a St. Nicholas Guild Choir of the Royal Faculty of Church Music.
After shifting to Atlanta in 1979, Dr. Davies established a weekly night service for newly arrived Jamaicans who had but to hitch a church. He remained in demand to supply music for Jamaican neighborhood occasions, preached at two Jamaican Independence providers, and delivered the sermon on the memorial for former Prime Minister Michael Manley. He additionally supported the Kingston Faculty Outdated Boys’ Affiliation’s Atlanta chapter whereas serving on the Presbyterian church he as soon as pastored.
Rev. Dr. Barry Davies accomplished seminary at Columbia Theological Seminary, was ordained, and served in quite a few roles, together with parish affiliate and organist at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Even after retiring from formal ministry, he continued to contribute to the Atlanta Jamaican neighborhood and later in Palm Coast, Florida, providing each non secular and musical steering and officiating at main occasions.
Requested how he ended up in ministry, Davies as soon as defined: “It had been in my blood since I first heard missionaries visiting my church after I was a younger boy.” He had supposed to go to seminary after incomes his first diploma however stated he misplaced his religion and spent 30 years as a “humanist agnostic.” He added, “Religion returned at age 50 – as did my name to ministry.”
Consistent with his needs, there might be no spiritual or formal memorial service. Mates are as a substitute invited to assemble informally—maybe over a beer or two—to share tales, laughter, and music in his reminiscence. A Celebration of Life video might be shared with family members at a later date.
Rev. Dr. Barry Davies as soon as provided this guiding philosophy: “Attempt to benefit from on daily basis of life, and if modifications must be made, make them – it doesn’t matter what age.” By all accounts, he lived trustworthy to these phrases.
