Rankin Family - Reunion
Jan. 18th, 2007 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jawnbcWe caught the Rankin Family Reunion (title of the tour and their new album) show last night at the Queen Elizabeth Threatre. First the only negatives of the evening: Cookie was apparently deathly ill with the flu and only sang a few bits on lead vocal, and there were a few moments that the audio wasn't, uh, good. Get well soon Cookie!
Otherwise? Brilliant! The Rankins do a mix of Celtic trad, country and alternative music. singing in English and Scots Gaelic. Their vocals are incredible--the sort of 3- and 4-part harmony perhaps only possible after an entire lifetime of singing together. But they are also wonderful entertainers: singing, dancing, and clearly having as good a time as the audience. The musicianship of their band was equally impressive. It was a great time: Canuckleheads, get your tickets now!
The song that wrested Canada's attention back in the early 90s was "Fare thee well love". Nothing about this record should have made it a hit single: it's traditional Celtic music, featuring silblings singing harmony, and is both subtle and beautiful But a hit record it was, earning heavy rotation on MuchMusic among the hip hop, rock and pop hits of the day. And at the following years' Juno Awards they cleaned up, winning Entertainers of the Year, Group of the Year, Country Group of the Year and Single of the Year. "Fare thee well love" was such a huge it that Capitol Records signed the group and re-released their second album, which was an independent release. It subsequently went quadruple platinum.
Fare thee well love, the video
This link apparenlty won't play on Macs; only windows and Internet Explorer (with ActiveX and Windows Media Player plugins). But it was the only copy of the video I could find online. :(
Otherwise? Brilliant! The Rankins do a mix of Celtic trad, country and alternative music. singing in English and Scots Gaelic. Their vocals are incredible--the sort of 3- and 4-part harmony perhaps only possible after an entire lifetime of singing together. But they are also wonderful entertainers: singing, dancing, and clearly having as good a time as the audience. The musicianship of their band was equally impressive. It was a great time: Canuckleheads, get your tickets now!
The song that wrested Canada's attention back in the early 90s was "Fare thee well love". Nothing about this record should have made it a hit single: it's traditional Celtic music, featuring silblings singing harmony, and is both subtle and beautiful But a hit record it was, earning heavy rotation on MuchMusic among the hip hop, rock and pop hits of the day. And at the following years' Juno Awards they cleaned up, winning Entertainers of the Year, Group of the Year, Country Group of the Year and Single of the Year. "Fare thee well love" was such a huge it that Capitol Records signed the group and re-released their second album, which was an independent release. It subsequently went quadruple platinum.
Fare thee well love, the video
This link apparenlty won't play on Macs; only windows and Internet Explorer (with ActiveX and Windows Media Player plugins). But it was the only copy of the video I could find online. :(
