Few albums by East Coast artists have had to meet the kind of expectations that awaited Jimmy Rankin’s Song Dog in 2001.
It was the Mabou-raised musician’s first album as a solo artist following the Rankin Family’s – or the Rankins, as they had rebranded at the time – decision to stop touring and recording together in the fall of 1999. That decision became sadly more definite with the death of older brother John Morris Rankin in early 2000.
There was no question that Jimmy Rankin would find his footing on his own, his talents as a songwriter were already well established on Rankin Family classics like Mull River Shuffle, You Feel the Same Way Too and Orangedale Whistle, but it was also known that he had a wider range of taste and talents than he could fit in the family band format.
Now, 25 years later, the Cape Breton songsmith is looking back at that tumultuous, but ultimately rewarding, time in his life and career with an East Coast anniversary tour celebrating his first solo success.
“I wanted to make something that wouldn’t sound dated,” Rankin says, who found a fresh set of ears in songwriter/producer Tim Thorney (Ennis Sisters, Alanis Morissette). “I remember conversations with Thorney about drum sounds and things like that, but I think it’s aged well because of that. There are records that sound dated, but they’re nostalgic and they’re still great records. But I wanted to make something that stemmed from the music and influences that inspired me, and there’s a variety of styles that melds together and holds up well.”
Much of Song Dog has remained in Rankin’s set list a quarter-century later, from its soulful first single Followed Her Around to the heart-wrenching story of Tripper. But now he’s presenting the album in full for the first time on a special Maritimes tour that starts with a run through New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, stopping in Fredericton on Oct. 21, Moncton on Oct. 22 and Charlottetown on Oct. 23.
The Nova Scotia portion begins on Friday, Oct. 30 at Halifax’s Light House Arts Centre, followed by a Glasqow Square show in New Glasgow on Thursday, Nov. 5; then Glace Bay’s historic Savoy Theatre on Friday, Nov. 6, and a special Chéticamp set at the Doryman on Saturday, Nov. 7.
The tour also marks the debut of Song Dog as a vinyl LP, specially pressed for the tour, and a point of pride for Rankin, a longtime record collector who enjoyed having it remastered.
“We worked really hard on that record. That was back when you really made records; now, you try to make them so quickly, because it’s so expensive and there’s no real payback for records. They’re basically a calling card, but you still need them,” Rankin said over the phone from his home in Halifax. “We had a good team, there was a great bunch of musicians on the record, we put a lot of thought into the arrangements, and there was a lot of pre-production done for it. It was just a good bunch of guys who wanted to make a really good record.”
Many Song Dog songs, on the face of them, could easily have been sung by the Rankins, and Jimmy says some of them date back to his days with Raylene, Cookie and Heather and brother John Morris. Midnight Angel and Lighthouse Heart have a feel that’s not dissimilar to what they were doing together after they’d developed from Celtic music into something more contemporary, and Tripper is certainly a deep dive into the heart of a Cape Breton character not far off from Mull River Shuffle.
But probably not Lou Pomanti’s Hammond B3 organ blast of Followed Her Around – and definitely not its music video filmed at Dartmouth strip club Ralph’s Place – while the anguished cry of Wasted could only have come from the upheaval and loss of the past few years, including the passing of his mother Kaye Rankin in 1997.
“Wasted was written in Italy,” Rankin said, whose wife Mia suggested a Mediterranean getaway to kickstart the next phase of his musical career. “I was in this apartment, it was in the morning, and somebody was playing a radio somewhere across the narrow street where all the windows and doors were open. I heard a song or a note or something that sparked an idea, and everything I was going through on that trip came out in that song.”
The Italian songwriting session put Rankin in better spirits for making his first album alone but then came the challenge of presenting it on stage with a new band. His first solo set was a headlining slot at the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, where it poured rain during his trial by fire, and then came a fall tour with a triumphant Rebecca Cohn Auditorium show in Halifax where everything clicked, and then a night at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay when the power went out.
“I was nervous as a cat anyway, because I’d never really done a full-length concert on my own, with a band, and it happened right after the first set, (Savoy manager) Donald Ferguson came down to the dressing room and said, ‘Listen buddy, the power’s not going to be coming back on, so you’ve got two choices: you can call it quits or go up there and do something acoustically,’” Rankin recalls. “I didn’t know what I was going to do – now I’d be totally OK with it – but I had to make the decision to haul everybody out front with a snare drum and a couple of acoustic guitars and whatever else we had on stage, and the audience stayed in the theatre. There was no complaining, all you could see was the EXIT lights, and we did Followed Her Around and everybody sang along with it. … I still tell that story whenever I’m at the Savoy, I’m still amazed by it.”
If you want to be amazed by how well Song Dog stands up 25 years later, and perhaps sing along with some of your favourites, you can find tickets to all of the shows on the Tour page at jimmyrankin.com, as well as links for passes to a special VIP pre-show experience at each tour stop.