I’ve had a great weekend so far
and it seems a shame to end it by spending the day doing the laundry but then
again – it is more shameful to not have clean underwear.
I’m just back from a night filled
with musical discovery with like-minded friends and I’m ready to carry that
experience over into Sunday and write this review. The laundry can wait that
long.
Disc 771 is….North Country
Artist: The
Rankin Family
Year of Release: 1993
What’s up with the Cover? Fashion was terrible in the early
nineties, and this cover has it on full display. High-waisted pleated pants,
shapeless long dresses, oversized vests, mom jeans and shirts that could double
as tents.
On a
side note, Jimmy Rankin (guy on the right) is about 5’8” in real life, which
tells you just how tiny this family is.
How I Came To Know It: I had become a fan of the Rankin
Family through their previous album, “Fare Thee Well Love” so I just bought
this one when it came out and hoped it would be as good.
How It Stacks Up: I’m going to reluctantly trust my
earlier Rankin reviews and put this album second best out of the six I have,
even though I wasn’t all that inspired listening to it this time around.
Ratings: 3 stars
Strangely there was a time when my music collection
was not ridiculously large. CDs I owned back then got a lot of air time, and “North
Country” was one of them. As a result I know this album really well, and I wasn’t
ready to revisit it just yet. Sadly, the CD Odyssey had other ideas.
The Rankin Family were a big deal in 1993, and “North
Country” rode the wave of excitement Canada had at the time for folk music from
Eastern Canada. It was a crossover hit into country, folk and pop radio,
building on the success of “Fare Thee Well Love” and taking it to another level.
The Rankins are incredibly polished, and this is
both an asset and a detriment.
On the plus side, they are always on point, and all
three sisters (Raylene, Heather and the oddly named “Cookie”) have voices that
are so high and pure they could cut a hole in a fog bank. I expect that would
be a useful superpower back in Cape Breton, in fact – they should have been
lighthouse keepers. But I digress…
Jimmy Rankin also sings beautifully and his voice keeps
the songs grounded when his sisters would have them soar off into the
stratosphere. When I first heard this album, I couldn’t get enough of the
sisters, but over the years I’ve shifted to appreciating Jimmy more and more.
Now, I wish he was featured more and when I want to hear this style of music, I
tend to put his solo albums on instead.
Rounding out the group is John Morris Rankin, who
doesn’t sing but is capable on both the fiddle and piano and holds everything together.
The Rankins biggest asset – their precision and
vocal excellence – is also what holds “North Country” back from being better.
Folk music is about telling the stories of ordinary people, and it doesn’t work
unless you infuse it with the right emotional content. “North Country” doesn’t do
sad well.
When the song is upbeat you don’t notice. “Mull River Shuffle” and “Johnny Tulloch” are essentially dance songs
about nothing more than going to a dance. The singing is lively and John Morris
and guest player Howie Macdonald make their fiddles jump.
The title track is about loving where you’re from,
and although it is a bit more on the pop side of the ledger, the cheery quality
of the Rankins fits it well.
“Lisa Brown”
which is a song about wanting the title character to come home, is just
overblown. The song should have a bit of anxiety over whether Lisa will return.
Instead it sounds like another dance song.
Ditto for most songs on “North Country” with some
kind of tension in them. Jimmy Rankin composes “Borders and Time” as a song full of regret, but Cookie Rankin’s voice
is just too pitch perfect to pull it off. Jimmy fares a little better on “Tramp Miner.” This is a song about a guy
working in the mines until it eventually kills him. It should be a stoic and
tragic tale of a working man, but it doesn’t quite capture the sadness it
needs. It would be better with just Jimmy and no backing vocals, and maybe
trade out the piano for just guitar.
The Gaelic songs on the album are much better, and
both “Ho Ro Mo Nighean Donn Bhoidheach”
and “Leis and Lurgainn” are
brilliantly delivered. This might be because I don’t understand the words, or
that they are traditional songs and a song that survives a couple hundred years
in folk music tends to be good. “Leis and
Lurgainn” is one of my all time favourite Rankin tunes, probably third
behind only “Fare Thee Well Love” and
“Ballad of Malcom Murray.”
“North Country” is a bit too cheerful and a bit too
produced, but there is plenty to like on this record, and I know I’ll
eventually return to it more regularly. For now it needs to cool off a
bit more on the CD shelf for a while longer.
Best
tracks: Mull
River Shuffle, Ho Ro Mo Nighean Donn Bhoidheach, Leis an Lurgainn (Boat Song), Johnny
Tulloch
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