It's the Christmas season, and Jimmy Rankin's Christmas tour will be rolling through the city to help get people into the holiday spirit. A mix of old favorites and new ideas, the show promises to be a holiday highlight when it visits as part of the Stars for Saskatchewan series.
Rankin says that while it's a show focused on the holidays, it's not just about Christmas music, with his plan of drawing from his extensive back catalog as well as a new album that is coming out in April of 2014. He also says that it's a show that will be sure to include old favorites as well, as requests and fan interaction being a common occurrence at his shows. Rankin says that the biggest challenge every night is deciding what to play, since that catalog extends back to his Rankin Family days. He says that when it comes to requests, so long as he can remember how to play the song, he'll give it a go.
The album Tinsel Town has been out a year, and Rankin says that playing for audiences familiar with the music is just as rewarding as being there when they are discovering it for the first time.
"People that have had my album for a year have been coming out knowing the album, so it's really nice playing for an audience that is familiar with my music. People need a new batch of Christmas songs."
"It's really cool when you go out and play an album for people and new songs, and they haven't heard them before, and they're just listening and applaud and they like it. Then, you go back a year, a year and a half later and you play those songs and people are familiar with them and they're more relaxed with them."
Delivering that new batch of songs was a challenge, Rankin admits, because Christmas can mean so many different things to different people.
"It's so personal for people, everyone has their own memories of Christmas... [Patricia Conroy and I] drew from our ideas of Christmas."
Rankin says that the songs he wrote each take a look at Christmas from a different angle.
"'Tinsel Town' is about this idyllic song about Christmas, it leaves you with this warm feeling. Images of children playing in the snow and people going for sleigh rides, a lot of people associate Christmas with those kinds of images and memories, certainly I do, and it was very much fun to write. There's a song on there called 'December' which is not really a Christmas song but is a song about the month of December and winter, and heading into winter every year and faces the challenges of life. It's darker, and kind of a moody song that I really love to play... There's a tongue in cheek song called 'I Don't Want to Say Goodbye to Christmas' from a very macho perspective. Someone whose very sentimental about Christmas and doesn't want to say goodbye to it just yet... The last one we wrote very quickly, it's called 'Boogie Woogie Christmas' which is a very fun Christmas song... I've been playing those songs, and people are familiar with them now and really grooving to them now, so that's rewarding to me."
He adds that his goal with Tinsel Town was to provide a soundtrack to the holidays, and the feedback he has received says that he has achieved that goal.
For his new album, coming in April, Rankin says that he's gone in a new direction, embracing traditional country instruments. He says that the core is still him, but the new direction is something he's proud of and he's surprised and delighted with the results.
"I still haven't hit my mark. I'm still getting better with each album and each song, and still loving what I do."
Jimmy Rankin will be in Yorkton on Wednesday, December 4 as part of the Yorkton Arts Council's Stars for Saskatchewan series. Tickets are $35 for adults, $15 for students and $10 for children under 6, and are available at www.yorktonarts.ca.
