Rankin family memories shine on festive album
Christmas has new meaning when sharing it with kids: Jimmy
The reason Jimmy Rankin made a Christmas album had nothing to do with the blockbuster success of Michael Buble’s multi-platinum Christmas, which won this year’s Juno Award for album of the year and is now up for a Grammy.
“Not at all,” Rankin said in a recent phone interview, chuckling at the notion of following someone else’s path. As the father of two explained, his new album, Tinsel Town, was inspired by his young family.
“My kids are five and seven, and Christmas has a new meaning for me now that I’m going through it with them. You’re reliving it,” he says. To set the tone for the music, he brought the youngsters into the studio to sing a charming opening to White Christmas.
Rankin picked it, and seven more of his favourite Christmas songs, based on memories of the Rankin family holidays of his childhood. One of 12 children who grew up in Mabou, Nova Scotia, Rankin remembers “lots of music, lots of food and lots of children.” But very little sleep for his mother, who served a big meal following midnight mass on Christmas Eve.
Wrapped in a clever package that doubles as a greeting card, the album also features a handful of original holiday tunes, including the warm-hearted title track, the romantic ballad December, a Boogie Woogie Christmas romp and the country-rocker Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye To Christmas. A seasoned singer-songwriter, Rankin was determined to include Christmasy originals, no matter how much of a challenge it would be to write them.
“I knew I wanted to put some standards and classics on this record, and those songs are so well written and so iconic and people have high expectations,” he says. “So to actually write a Christmas song that I would put on a record, you need very high standards. Putting a song up against those songs is a bit daunting at first but I got together with my friend Patricia Conroy and wrote.”
Of course, Rankin was writing songs back when Buble was writing to Santa. He was a key member of the Rankin Family, the Celtic-influenced family group formed by the Rankin siblings. Jimmy, his brother John Morris, and sisters, Heather, Cookie and Raylene, were a musical force in the Canadian music scene of the early-’90s, with a hit single, Fare Thee Well Love, and an album that sold half a million copies, plus a stack of Junos.
Jimmy has been getting a renewed sense of how much the music of the family group means to fans as he travels the country on his current tour. Canadians have been approaching him to express condolences and share memories of his sister, Raylene Rankin, who died of cancer three months ago.
“I don’t think Raylene even knew the impact she had on people across the country,” he says. “People come up to me all the time, every time I do a show. Or people recognize me and tell me what the Rankin music has meant to them and their children, and what it meant to them growing up. People are still listening to it and playing it for their children.”
As for his upcoming holiday celebration, Jimmy will be with his wife and children in Nashville, his first Christmas away from Cape Breton. Although they still have a place in Cape Breton, the family moved to the country-music capital two years ago. “Nashville is a music mecca. I’ve been making records there and going there since the mid-’90s and I’ve always liked the town,” says the musician who plans to make another album in 2013. “I talked about it for years, about just going down and really being in an environment where it’s all about music. We never got around to doing it, and basically we said now or never. We picked up and moved really quickly.”