Review Summary: A beautiful east-coast album that proves to be a great listen.
The Rankin Family are entrenched in the Canadian East Coast music scene. With just a hint of pop, the group take traditional Celtic melodic structures and mix it with more contemporary East Coast folk. Now, I had heard the Rankin Family on enumerable occasions throughout my childhood. My Uncle, who was already very fond of maritime music, and my parents both had fond respect for the group. As a child, I of course didn’t view the music in the same way as I do now. Becoming familiar with it at younger age, however, has made me come to appreciate this even more now. I can now look deeper into the music, beyond the familiar melodies, to it’s underpinnings. What I find is a really great record, produced by a very talented family. The ballads are beautiful, the jigs and traditional Celtic tunes are fun and the more pop/country influenced songs are catchy.
Third track, “Fair and Tender Ladies” is a good starting place to describe the album’s style. The slower ballad features soulful singing from Raylene, Carol Jean and Heather Rankin. In fact, one of the many constants and draws to the album is the vocal performances. They are all top notch performers; technically impressive while inflecting the right amount of personality into each track. Whether it be the innocent child-like giddiness of “Tell My Ma” or the Gaelic of expressions of, well, “Gaelic Medley”. They are all in key, in tune and on pitch, for essentially the entire album. It’s this sort of technical prowess that grounds the world music influences into something the average music lover can enjoy. Of course, the technical prowess is not merely confined to the vocals.
The musicianship and instrumentation on the album is very impressive and gives an extra presence to it. The guitar work of Jimmy Rankin on songs such as incredibly catchy “Gillis Mountain” and the aforementioned “Fair and Tender Ladies” features typical folk and maritime chord progressions, but is presented in a solid manner. The piano that accompanies many of the tracks on the album is also played well. Sticking to mainly chord progression and arpeggio accompaniment, some tracks, like “Gaelic Medley” and title track “Fare Thee Well Love” showcase a more dominant and difficult role for the pianist, the late John Morris. Morris is also the fiddle player on the album and is given plenty of time to shine, playing memorable Celtic melodies on “Gaelic Medley”, “Fiddle Medley”, and “Tripper’s Jig”. All of this great musicianship wouldn’t mean a thing if it wasn’t for the quality of the songwriting, which on this album is high.
Picking out the album centerpiece, the title track, can best show the songwriting capabilities of the Rankin’s. “Fare Thee Well Love” is a slow burning ballad that builds towards a cathartic ending. Starting with the low constant drone of an organ and a concertina, a lone male vocal melody is introduced. Soon, two more female vocals come into the piece and harmonize the male lead. After about a minute and a half, a piano motif and some minimalistic percussion propel the piece into it’s gorgeously melodic second half. The song is heart breaking in it’s beauty. Even if one is not a fan of this particular style of music, or even if you have never even heard of this style of music, you would be doing yourself a huge favour in listening to this piece of music.
The Rankins serve as a good entry point to the world of East Coast or maritime Canada music. They mix the traditional folk of that locality with some pop and country sensibilities. The result is a unique and really enjoyable album. This is an album of my childhood that I have only recently come to appreciate fully for all it’s subtle greatness. The melodies are still familiar and bring about a sense of nostalgia, but the quality within it, allows me to give it repeated listens to this day. Nostalgia act this is not.
