With an album to tie in the experience of touring off the beaten path, Jimmy Rankin is set to stop in Estevan for an intimate acoustic show on Oct. 20.
While Estevan isn’t always a hot stop on every musician’s cross-Canada tour, Rankin is making an effort to hit the stage in a plethora of smaller venues as he travels through Saskatchewan with performances in Kipling, Redvers and Moosomin, to name just a few of the other back road paradises on the tour.
The Canadian music legend, with more than 25 years under his belt recording music as a solo artist and as a member of the Rankin Family before that, is riding the waves of his latest album, released earlier this year called Back Road Paradise.
For Rankin, now 50, he said the album is a first full foray into the world of country music. While he has always had country influences in his music and has dabbled in the classic instruments of the genre, it’s this latest album where he set out from the beginning to record a complete collection of country songs.
“I’ve dabbled in country music my entire life,” Rankin said, noting on his second last record he experimented more with traditional country instruments, like pedal steels, dobros, banjos and mandolins. “This record I just went full tilt and made a country-pop record.”
Rankin spoke with the Mercury over the phone last week just before his homecoming show in Mabou, N.S.
Rankin is performing at the Estevan Comprehensive School and spoke about the connections he has to small towns and what performing in rural areas is like.
“I can’t recall a lot of these places in Saskatchewan. I’ve played in more major centres, but I’m from a small rural area so I can relate to being in these smaller communities,” said Rankin. “I’m very much looking forward to it. Over my career I’ve gotten to see a lot of places in Canada and around the world that I never would have seen had I been just somebody doing another occupation, so I’m always excited about seeing places in Canada I’ve never visited before and playing for people I’ve never played for before.
“I think my music applies. I’m singing about regular people for the most part,” he added about how his music may be accepted in smaller, more rural and remote places.
For his shows in the Maritimes, Rankin is performing with his full band, but as he comes through Saskatchewan, Manitoba and other places on his fall tour, he will be performing largely acoustic shows featuring him and a multi-instrumentalist who will accompany him playing mandolin, guitar and others.
“I always improvise a little bit. Things change and there are solos. Things change in a live performance over time,” said Rankin about his live shows.
“In a lot of ways there’s more energy in the (acoustic) performance because there are two of us. In a lot ways I enjoy more than a full band show because I get to improvise more. I get to change the set list a lot quicker if I want to.”
He said his acoustic sets aren’t as “experimental” as Bob Dylan’s but he will jam a little longer on particular songs – “they’re always morphing or changing vocally.”
“The acoustic thing is very intimate. It’s very much the same show, mostly the same songs, but delivered acoustically. The show is more like a roller coaster ride, there are ballads and then up tempo stuff. I cover back catalogs and a lot of new stuff.”
As for his Back Road Paradise, the album features two songs that involve a duet, one with Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy and the other with Allison Krauss. Rankin said those songs in particular were important to him. Regarding the track Never Gonna Leave with Cuddy, he said, “I was thinking throughout the process, before I even recorded the song, that I wanted to have somebody guest on it who could complement my vocal, and just have their vocal up at the same level in the mix.”
Having previously worked with Blue Rodeo, he thought of Cuddy as a “perfect” fit for the track.
“The other song, Flames, I wanted a beautiful harmony on, sort of a haunting voice, and I thought of Allison Krauss. She adds another colour, another beautiful haunting colour to that song, which is sort of an eerie love song.”
With his tour kicking off on Oct. 3, Rankin said he was hitting his stride, getting his sea legs back and excited to once again perform his music for audiences across Canada.
“It’s really great to see the back roads in Canada. I’ve toured every time of year, and it’s really nice to be touring in the fall. The leaves are changing, and people are just in fall mode. There’s a really good vibe.”
Rankin’s performance at ECS begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets may be purchased at Henders Drugs.
