Owen Henry Parry, known to audiences as Harry Parry, was born on 22 January 1912 at Caepella, Bangor, Caernarfonshire, the eldest son of railway worker Henry Parry and his wife Emily Jane. Educated at Glanadda School and the Central School in Bangor, he worked as an apprentice instrument maker in the physics department of the University College of North Wales while teaching himself a string of instruments, including tenor horn, flugelhorn, cornet, violin and drums, before settling on the clarinet and saxophone as his true calling.
Moving to London in 1932, Parry played with several dance bands before the BBC picked him to lead the house band for its Radio Rhythm Club programme in 1940. His sextet, which at various times included the young George Shearing on piano, went on to record more than a hundred sides for Parlophone and helped introduce swing music to a mainstream British audience. An Evening Standard columnist of the day rated him 'the third best clarinettist in the world', and his compositions, including the tune 'Champagne', became signature pieces of the wartime British dance-band era.
After the war Parry continued broadcasting, presenting Housewives' Choice and appearing in Crackerjack, as well as touring the Middle East and India. He died on 11 October 1956 in Mayfair, London, at the age of just 44, before he was able to complete a planned comeback. Though he rarely had the chance to return, those who knew him said he always spoke proudly of his home town of Bangor.