CD Odyssey Disc 825: The Rankin Family

As I was preparing to review this album I noted that the last album I reviewed from the same year (1990) was Pantera’s “Cowboys From Hell.” This next review is about as far from “Cowboys From Hell” as you can get.

Disc 825 is….Fare Thee Well Love

Artist: Rankin Family

Year of Release: 1990

What’s up with the Cover? A beautiful east coast landscape, marred with some truly horrific nineties fashion. The Rankins look out of frame to the right, majestically imagining a future where women don’t have to dress like they escaped from a religious compound and men have waists.

How I Came To Know It: Back in 1990 there was no Youtubing music, but there were still plenty of music videos. I saw the video for the title track and fell in love with the Rankin Family. I’d say nowadays we’re just friends, but back in the day I really liked this record – and went on to buy practically every album they put out.

How It Stacks Up:  I have six Rankin Family albums, if you include the “Grey Dusk of Eve” EP. Of those six, “Fare Thee Well Love” is my favourite. And since this is the last Rankin Family review, here’s a recap – slightly adjusted from the original because when I reviewed “Grey Dusk of Eve” I thought it would finish fourth, but it finished second in the end:

1. Fare Thee Well Love: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
2. Grey Dusk of Eve EP: 4 stars (reviewed back at Disc 219)
3. North Country: 3 stars (reviewed back at Disc 771)
4. Uprooted: 3 stars (reviewed back at Disc 531)
5. Endless Seasons: 3 stars (reviewed back at Disc 387)
6. Self-Titled: 3 stars (reviewed back at Disc 515)

Ratings: 4 stars

I admit that 4 stars might be a little high here, but when a record has been in your life as long as “Fare Thee Well Love” has been in mine, you cut it a little slack.

I bought this album when it was released, and back then I owned very few albums on CD, so it got played a lot. This makes reviewing it more of a challenge. Sometimes just paying attention was difficult. My ears are so used to hearing these songs that if I don’t pay close attention they just become background noise. For casual music listeners this is how all albums must sound. How sad for them.

While the Rankins had one album before this, it was “Fare Thee Well Love” that launched them into the folk music spotlight for the rest of the nineties. It is easy to see why; their self-titled debut is just a little too traditional. With “Fare Thee Well Love” Jimmy Rankin comes more into his own as a songwriter and that makes all the difference.

Note that despite the modern influences, writ large this is still a traditional folk record, so don’t expect country or indie when you listen to it. This isn’t for everyone, and many will find it sounds a bit dated. I even find it that way at times.

There are plenty of traditional songs here, notably “Fair and Tender Ladies” and a Gaelic medley near the end of the record. “Fair and Tender Ladies” is a stunning vocal performance by one of the sisters (I think Cookie Rankin, but I can never keep that sorted in my head) about cads callously dumping their girlfriends. The Rankins tend to work a lot of harmonies into their arrangements, but on “Fair and Tender Ladies” they just let Cookie’s (?) voice soar. Jimmy plays a little guitar and John Morris’ piano is sublime, but the star of this song is the voice. You could cut Cape Breton fog and guide in a ship with that instrument.

Otherwise, though, the traditional songs are mostly forgettable. “Tell My Ma” and “An T-Each Ruadh” are so saccharine in fact that they feel like an elementary school sing-a-long.

The real stars of this album are Jimmy Rankin’s own compositions. “Orangedale Whistle” and “Fisherman’s Son” are both beautiful, with the former showing the type of country/folk crossover music Jimmy was destined to make in his solo career. By contrast, “Fisherman’s Son” has that timeless feel that great folk songs have, and will likely be played by future folk artists for decades to come; maybe centuries.

But the best thing about this album is still the reason I bought it in the first place, which is the title track. “Fare Thee Well Love” is a five star folk song. It starts with a rich ambient sound very unlike the other tracks on the record, a little piano and then Jimmy cuts in, singing of the heartache of having your sweetheart an ocean away from you. Cookie (?) responds with “far across love, far across love o’er the mountains and country wide.” When she sings that second “far across love” she pierces your heart with a perfect longing. “Fare Thee Well Love” is love, pure and uncut, cast in marble for us mere mortals to marvel at. If love in the real world were this concentrated we’d all die from it.

And since I’m looking for an excuse to give this imperfect record a four star rating, I’ll hang my hat on the title track. It is good enough to pull everything else up just a little bit.

Best tracks:  Orangedale Whistle, Fair and Tender Ladies, Fisherman’s Son, Fare Thee Well Love, Gaelic Medley 

CD Odyssey Disc 771: Rankin Family

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

CD Odyssey Disc 531: The Rankin Family

I’m currently working the early shift (starting at 5:30 a.m.).  It has only been three days, so the novelty is still there and I like the quiet of the walk, before traffic gets going.  Later it will start to wear, but for now it’s not too bad.

This next album is also not too bad – it is downright good, in fact.

Disc 531 is…. Uprooted

Artist: Rankin Family (aka “The Rankins” for this album)

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover?  A vaguely disturbing pastoral scene of a horse toiling under a red sky.  The painting is by Ken Nishi and is titled “Charlie Joe MacLean.”  The ghost of Charlie Joe is actually referenced in one of the album’s songs, “Weddings, Wakes and Funerals.”  I have no idea who Charlie Joe is, though.  You’ll have to ask Jimmy Rankin; he wrote the song.

How I Came To Know It:  This was just me, buying the Rankin Family albums as they came out.  What can I say?  When I like an artist I get into them.

How It Stacks Up:  First it was Soundgarden’s “Louder Than Love” then Rush’s “2112” and now for the third time in recent memory I find an album has impressed me more than I expected.  I have six Rankin Family CDs and I’d left room for “Uprooted” at #5.  Having listened to it though, I have to move it up so I’ll put it 3^rd and bump “Endless Seasons” back to 5^th.  It also means that “North Country” will likely get bumped when I review it, but then again maybe it will surprise me as well.  Always be willing to change your mind.

Rating:  3 stars but close to 4

“Uprooted” is the last album for the Rankins before they broke up (although they did reform several years later, at least briefly).  The album is a bit of a departure for them stylistically, which may account for why it jarred me so much in 1998 when it was released.

The record has the band dropping the ‘family’ from their title and identifying simply as “The Rankins.” The music is also a shift.  It still incorporates a goodly amount of traditional East Coast Celtic folk, but it adds in some more contemporary folk and a bit of pop as well.  Given where Jimmy Rankin’s solo albums would go after this record, I have to believe he was a big part of the shift.

The opening track, “Moving On” is a typical Rankin Family party song, with Jimmy and his sisters taking turns on verses.  It doesn’t break any new ground, but it is jumpy and gets the energy of the record up from the very beginning.

The real winners on this album are Jimmy Rankin songs where he is spreading his wings as a songwriter.  “Let It Go” is a poignant song about love’s collapse.  When Jimmy sings “you wanna stop the flame from burning/I just want to let it go” we’re reminded that sometimes the saddest death of a love affair is the one born out of resignation.

Jimmy also writes some great stuff for his sisters on this record, including “Bells” which showcases the amazing range of Heather Rankin.  She starts this song on a note I couldn’t reach and then climbs up an octave higher.  The song starts simple, with just John Morris on piano, and builds naturally like great songs do.

The pop elements on the album are generally kept tastefully restrained, although there are times when I would have toned them down further.  “Maybe You’re Right” has some strange background vocals that would be more at home on a pop starlet’s record than a serious folk album.  It is worth noting that the Rankins do all the vocal effects without the abomination that is Autotune.  Also, hearing Heather Rankin sing the line “when the shit hits the fan” on “Long Way to Go” sounds a bit jolted.  A voice so sweet just sounds weird wrapped around sour words.  Given how sweet her voice is, though, it is a minor quibble.

There are still plenty of excellent traditional sounding songs on the record.  Most are crowded onto what we old-timers would refer to as “Side Two” giving the latter half of the record a bit more of what fans at the time were probably expecting.  Traditional Gaelic songs like “O Tha Mo Dhuil Ruit (Oh How I Love Thee)” and “An Innis Aigh (The Happy Isle)” are classic Rankin Family, with the beautiful, powerful harmonies of sisters Cookie, Raylene and Heather.  The band has always been fortunate in having so many great voices all together.

Brother John Morris also delivers his usual writing excellence on “The Parlour Medley.”  John Morris could really wail on a violin, in that heavy stepping Cape Breton style that is full of sway and life and makes you want to get up and kick some floorboards.

For all these, my favourite traditional song is “Farewell to Lochaber.”  I can’t be certain, but I think this is a song about a soldier having to leave Scotland after the Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion failed in 1746.  A number of chiefs and retainers fled Scotland with Bonnie Prince Charlie, never to return.  Hearing this song, from the perspective of one of the soldiers saying goodbye to his sweetheart – as it turns out, forever – is heartbreaking.

It helps that one of my favourite pictures (a print of which graces the wall of our living room) is J.B. MacDonald’s “Lochaber No More.”  Here’s a picture of it.

If you look at the bottom right you’ll see one of my favourite details; a highlander taking a cup of seawater from the shores of Lochaber – a memento of his home while in exile.  Damn, it’s heartbreaking.  But I digress…

Back to “Uprooted” which as I noted above, is a great mix of traditional and modern, upbeat and melancholy.  This album really grew on me, and although I loved what Jimmy did on his solo work out of the gate, it makes you realize how much magic he had with the family, even as they all prepared to take an extended break.

Best tracks:  Let It Go, Bells, Parlour Medley, Tailor’s Daughter, Lochaber No More

CD Odyssey Disc 515: The Rankin Family

A long weekend is a beautiful thing.  If you are like me and are lucky enough to be experiencing one right now, take a minute to appreciate it.  Also resolve to be particularly nice to all those people in jobs that have to work.  All those cab drivers, servers, and retail clerks that get paid low wages to ensure we nine-to-fivers can go for lunch, go shopping or otherwise entertain ourselves.  Treat them well, and tip them generously.

Disc 515 is…. Self-Titled

Artist: The Rankin Family

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover?  As folk covers go, I’ve seen worse.  This is basically just a family portrait taken in a studio.  Heather (centre) looks particularly radiant but what I’m struck by most is that two of the Rankin family (Raylene and John Morris) are no longer with us; victims of cancer and a car accident respectively.  Damned sad.  To both of them I can only say, ‘fare thee well’.

How I Came To Know It:  I was introduced to the Rankin Family in 1990 when I bought their second album and loved it.  I eagerly cast about for more by them and since they only had two albums at the time, this was the next thing I bought.

How It Stacks Up:  I have six Rankin Family albums, which I think is all of them.  I like them all to varying degrees, but I must be honest and put their self-titled debut last in terms of how it stacks up.

Rating:  3 stars.

You could sum up the Rankin Family’s eponymous debut in one word:  cheerful.  In places it is almost too much so, but if you’re going to have a surfeit of something, cheer seems like as good a thing as any.

I bought this album very early in my exploration of Celtic folk music, and it was a nice entry point.  The three musical medleys (the “Piano Medley”, the “Fiddle Medley” and the “Jigging Medley” respectively are a couple of quick tours through a number of catchy traditional Celtic songs (thirteen little pieces in all, with a John Morris original, “Hull’s Reel” bringing up the rear of the “Fiddle Medley”).

The Gaelic tracks are accessible, and both have their titles translated so you will know what they are about, even if you can’t sing along.  “Chi Mi Na Morbheanna (Mist Covered Mountain)” is down tempo and haunting, and “Mo Run Geal Dileas (My Faithful Fair One)” is fast and fun.  “Mo Run Geal Dileas” is the first track and when I first starting listening to the album it was the first thing I heard as I walked to work.  It put a spring in my step and a smile on my face.

“Dileas” (pronounced jee-lass) means faithful, and when Sheila and I went to Scotland in 1996 we met a sheep dog at a highland pub named “Dileas.”  I remember that pub well, which was 90% locals (and given the size of the town, likely 90% of the available locals), a couple of U.S. sailors from a visiting aircraft carrier that had gotten a bit farther afield than their fellow servicemen, and us.  I usually hate having a dog in a pub, but when they are as friendly and well behaved as Dileas, I’ll make an exception.  Knowing what his name meant because of the Rankin Family made me feel that much more part of the local crowd.  Of course, the Rankins are Canadian (holla!) not Scots, but being Cape Bretoners their musical connection to Scotland and Ireland is easy to spot.

Another song that inspires me to flash a grin is “Mairi’s Wedding, also traditional.  If this song doesn’t make you want to dance then there’s something wrong with you.  Each of the three sisters and brother Jimmy take their turn singing a verse.  They do this throughout the record, and I would prefer that the stronger voices take more centre stage on some other songs.  That approach would just seem unkind given the wedding celebration vibe of “Mairi’s Wedding.”  John Morris doesn’t sing, but he tags his own fiddle reel (titled “Michael Rankin’s Reel”) onto the end of the song.  John Morris is an accomplished fiddle and piano player and his musicality is a big part of the album’s success.

The album is also an early demonstration of Jimmy Rankin’s songwriting.  Jimmy would later be responsible for many of the more memorable Rankin Family songs, and after the band went their separate ways, would release a number of excellent solo albums. At this early stage, his songwriting prowess is not yet fully developed, and I found songs like “Lonely Island” and “Loving Arms” a bit stilted or trite in places.  His best effort on this record is “Roving Gypsy Boy.”

Even so “Roving Gypsy Boy” has some odd lyrics.  Jimmy sings that the gypsy boy “left the high road to live on the low/And all different kinds that he met there.”  He means that he didn’t pursue monetary wealth, but in Gaelic lore the low road often refers to being dead, which made for a weird association for me.  Also, while I like this message…

“There’s a lot more to gain from this living than wealth

There’s a lesson to learn with devotion

Be kind to all others as well as yourself

Or you’ll drift like a boat out on the ocean.”

…isn’t a boat supposed to drift on the ocean?  It seems to serve the rhyme more than the thought, which is a poetic no no.  I still love the song, though.

The album can tend a bit away toward being a bit too ‘dear,’ and the ever-present cheerfulness lifts the spirit, but it doesn’t create enough emotional range.  “Lament of the Irish Immigrant” tries to deliver a bit of despondency, but sung a capella in such a technically precise manner it feels more like a musical exercise than a dirge.

Because of the beautiful harmonies, the early signs of Jimmy Rankin’s musical genius and the superb musicianship of John Morris Rankin, I bumped this record just north of three star territory but I still consider it the weakest entry in their catalogue.

Best tracks:  Mo Run Geal Dileas, Mairi’s Wedding, Roving Gypsy Boy, Chi Mi Na Morbheanna, Fiddle Medley.

CD Odyssey Disc 387: The Rankin Family

It has been a hard Easter long weekend, as Sheila and I have had to deal with Inigo backsliding badly in his health, and needing another tap to drain fluid out of his chest. I hold out very little hope for him, and barring a miracle, this will be his last week with us. It sucks mightily.

So we’ve spent our weekend having a few cries, a few drinks and four games of Arkham Horror as we try to keep our minds occupied with something enjoyable.

Disc 387 is…Endless Seasons

Artist: The Rankin Family

Year of Release: 1995

What’s Up With The Cover?: A portrait of the band, shot to look antique. This cover isn’t anything special, but as folk music album art goes, it is pretty good.

How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I reviewed Grey Dusk of Eve way back at Disc 219, I’ve been a fan of the Rankin Family since I first heard “Fare The Well Love” in 1990. “Endless Seasons” is their fourth studio album, and I bought it when it came out.

How It Stacks Up: I have six Rankin Family albums (including one EP). “Endless Seasons” is a good record, but I’d put it 4^th out of those six.

Rating: 3 stars

I had intended to start this review noting the growth of pop and country influences on “Endless Seasons,” but listening again on the headphones as I write this, I think what I was hearing was better production. You see, lovers of folk music have an incredibly high tolerance for weak production values, as long as the music is good. They are rivaled in this only by lovers of punk music, who take it one step further and actually enjoy bad production. The production on “Endless Seasons” is amazing. So good, I almost forgot I was listening to a folk album.

This is folk music though, and good folk music at that, with the Rankin’s usual tasteful mix of traditional tunes, modern originals and at least one song sung in Gaelic.

Gaelic is a beautiful language, and I love listening to it sung, even when I don’t know what they’re saying. The offering on “Endless Seasons” is the very pretty “Oganaich An Or-fhuilt Bhuidhe/Am Braighe.” Say that three times fast. In English it means “Youth Whose Hair Is Golden Yellow/The Braes of Margaree.”

The Rankin sisters (Cookie, Raylene and Heather) have a beautiful, pure tone to their voices and in “Oganaich, etc.” you can hear every syllable. And of course, the mind – eternally trying to form order out of chaos – unhelpfully fills in English words whenever it thinks it hears them. Sheila and I always find this a humorous byproduct of listening to the Rankins sing Gaelic. So on this listen, among other things I heard:

“It clicks and gleams but boy you lean
You break your spleen your dyin’
But take machines and marry me
So come and clean up early.

The actual translation from Gaelic of that section comes out:

“The hills and dales most beautiful to us
Are the hills and dales of the Braes (Margarees)
Where we often sang
sweet melodies in the friendly company we liked best.”

So while I’m sure we can all agree that I was pretty close, the song is not in fact about human-robot love or cybernetic implants. It is a traditional song about a woman praising a guy for being a very good hunter, and an all-around brawny, attractive fellow. Like I said, I was pretty close.

Whatever it is about, it is a beautifully re-imagined traditional song, and the sisters sing it like angels. Listening, it is easy to remember why when I first listened to the Rankin family in the early nineties, my favourites featured the female voices of the band. Years later, I still love them, but I have a new appreciation for Jimmy Rankin.

Also a gifted singer, Jimmy’s voice has a bit more roughness in it that makes it the perfect foil against his sisters. On many songs, such as “Blue Eyed Suzie” each of the four of them take a turn at a verse, and Jimmy’s always manages to ground the song a little bit before Cookie, Raylene or Heather fly you back up to the clouds. It is a great combination, and they use it perfectly (did I mention the production is excellent?)

The final song on the album is my favourite, a Jimmy Rankin composition, sung by him alone called “Your Boat’s Lost At Sea,” a heartbreaking tale of someone hoping that their true love makes it back against all odds:

“Fire on the water
And smoke in the sky
I’ll leave the lamp burning
In case you drop by.”

I like the decision to use ‘drop by’ as well, re-interprets the song and see it as a more mundane collapse of the relationship, where one person is still hoping to salvage something that is beyond recovery. Or to paraphrase the Matrix, "the secret is - there is no boat."

The album is heartfelt and honest, but stumbles in places with an over-earnestness. This is particularly noticeable on “Natives” a song about the terrible history of the residential school system in Canada. It is an important topic, but the song tries to cover too much ground and misses its emotional target. It would benefit from the Steve Earle system of creating a single character around which to tell the story, rather than trying to write a chapter of history into a poem.

The title track, “Endless Seasons” is another fine Jimmy Rankin break-up song but the decision is taken to have the sisters sing it. They can sing the phone book and make it sound good, but their voices are a bit too pretty, and I found myself wishing Jimmy had sung this one instead. Hey, I said the production decisions were amazing – not perfect.

All told, I almost gave this album four stars, but lyrically there are a couple of awkward spots, and I have that ‘hard marker’ reputation to hold up, so I kept my enthusiasm dampened to a very high three, and left some room for their other albums to surpass it.

Best tracks: Oganaich An Or-fhuilt Bhuidhe/Am Braighe, Forty Days and Nights, Endless Seasons, Blue Eyed Suzie, Your Boat’s Lost At Sea

CD Odyssey Disc 219: Rankin Family

Thor is a hard act to follow, so perhaps it is fitting that the Odyssey went from a grandiose attempt at a metal concept album to an understated folk EP.

Disc 219 is...Grey Dusk of Eve
Artist: Rankin Family

Year of Release: 1995

What’s Up With The Cover?: I don't know. It is a tasteful bit of photography and design though. Very beautiful and understated. It gives me a nice sense of calm and introspection, a lot like this record.

How I Came To Know It: I have been a fan of the Rankin Family since I bought their "Fare Thee Well Love" album in 1990. "Grey Dusk of Eve" was just me buying their latest offering.

How It Stacks Up: Including this album, I have six Rankin Family albums, which discounting Christmas records, compilations and live shows, is all of them. Even though this is only a five song EP, it holds its own, and I'll put it third out of six.

Rating: 4 stars.

As long-time readers of this blog will know, I am not keen on records with too many songs - in my opinion fourteen is pushing the upper limit. For an EP, that top limit should be five, so "Grey Dusk of Eve" is suitably restrained. In a way, it is too bad, because I really like this album's feel, and found myself wishing for a few more. I also like that these EP tracks aren't just remarketed later on another album - they are a unique offering unto themselves.

This album gives a sampling of everything good about the Rankin Family. The first track, "Grey Dusk of Eve (Portobello)" is actually a reworking of a song on 1993's North Country called "Leis an Lurgainn", which I believe is a song in praise of a boat that takes a sailor through some rough weather. While I prefer the original version, I like this reimagining as well.

The album also has a wonderful fiddle medley, another song featuring the beautiful harmonies of the Rankin sisters and even fits in a Gaelic love-song called "An Teid Thu Leam A Mhairi" or "Will You Go With Me Mary". Spoiler alert - at first she won't, but then she will. I suspect this song is chiefly to show off Heather Rankin's vocals, but what I noticed on this listen was John Morris Rankin's understated but deeply heartfelt piano playing.

John Morris is one hell of a folk pianist, the more so that he never took centre stage, but always let his siblings shine. He was the glue that held the band together, and I will always regret his untimely death in a winter car accident many years ago.

All this praise aside, the one song on this record that will always stand out for me is one of my favourite Rankin Family songs (and one of my favourite folk songs of all time), the Jimmy Rankin original, "The Ballad of Malcolm Murray".

The song tells the story of a friend of Jimmy Rankin's youth - an outdoorsman, perhaps a little rough around the edges, who meets his untimely death in the woods- although how is never described.

This song shows the greatness of Jimmy Rankin - while part of the Rankin Family charm is their homage to Atlantic folk traditions, it is Jimmy that is always pushing their limits, and I have been a fan of his solo career in more recent years.

"The Ballad of Malcolm Murray" is Jimmy Rankin at his best - his voice full of soulful yearning, spinning the story of a man that helped shape his life. The song is short, simple, to the point and perfect. It is five star folk. Since it is so short, I'll just share the lyrics with you right here:

"Stood alone there, out on the highway.
In the blackness, on his own.
Through the wind, rain and fury
'Folds the story of Malcolm Murray

Not an evil bone in his body,
Not a bad thought in his mind
Always drifting, home to home
To everybody he was kind

Was a hunter and a drinker
A simple life his only care
You could find him out on the backroad
Or in a tavern, alone somewhere.

Heard one day, that he'd been missing
Gone out hunting, did not return.
The sky turned cloudy, the wind grew still
For his poor soul, my heart yearned

Found him lying, in the mountains
By a stream where he loved to be
Lost a good friend and a good man
Say farewell to Malcolm Murray

It's been said, out on the backroad.
There's a shadow by the light of the moon
Never fear, never worry,
It's just the memory of Malcolm Murray.

Stood alone there out on the highway.
In the blackness, on his own"

This song always makes me think of my brother - himself a rugged outdoorsman - and because it sings of Murray's death I'm not ashamed to say it sometimes has me tearing up a bit at the thought. If anyone is safe in British Columbia's wild spaces it is my brother, but I'd be lying if I didn't sometimes worry about him - maybe he thinks the same of me in the city, although he'd never say. One thing is certain - if there is ever a zombie apocalypse, it is Virgil you want handy, not me.

It is 11:45 PM on December 14th, and in fifteen minutes it will be my brother's birthday. Happy Birthday, Virgil - I love you, man.

Best tracks: Grey Dusk of Eve, The Ballad of Malcolm Murray, Twin Fiddle Medley