Real People and Sheer Joy of Harmony - By Greg Quill - Toronto Star
No choreography, no blitzkrieg lighting, no stage props or pop-up effects, no fancy talk, no smoke and mirrors – just voices raised in the sheer joy of harmony and service to the song, and real people paying honest tribute to the music that has wrapped itself around them all their lives, its humanity transparent.
That was how the Rankin Family came across last night at the first of two scheduled concerts at Toronto's Massey Hall – the second show takes place tonight – as they work their way from the West Coast back home to Cape Breton.
The tour is partly a brief reunion, and largely a celebration of the Scottish- and Irish-based Maritimes folk music they brought to Canada's – and the world's – great stages in the 1980s and '90s.
It's a show that's also touched with sorrow. Over and above the famed siblings' penchant for sentimental balladry, the absence of their brother, founding member, arranger, fiddler and piano virtuoso John Morris – he perished in a car accident in 2000, two years after the band had ended a stellar 15-year run – and the loss of their elder sister Geraldine to a brain aneurysm last month, seemed to weigh on Jimmy, Heather, Cookie and Raylene Rankin.
Through nearly two hours of a performance that ranged from Cape Breton fiddle-and-dance through energetic country-tinged bluegrass and folk, to lush, guitar-driven pop, a palpable sadness lingered.
Even when John Morris's luminously talented daughter, 19-year-old Molly Rankin, came front and centre to sing her own composition – "Sunset," one of the highlights of the band's new album, Reunion, – or to join in fiery fiddle duets with the backing band's top gun, Howie MacDonald, the wistful smiles on her aunts' faces reflected as much pain as pride.
Blending hits from both the family's and Jimmy's solo repertoires – "Fare Thee Well, Love," "The Orangedale Special," "Borders And Time," "Slipping Away," "Fisherman's Son," "Nut Brown Maiden" – and songs from the new album, including David Francey's "Sunday Morning," driven into an old-time dance frenzy, the Rankins satisfied every heart in the jammed concert hall.
Fans whistled and hollered their approval with every new tune, and called out their thanks to band members by name at the end of every solo spot. They sang along on the songs they knew, clapped along on those they'd not heard before.
It was a long overdue reunion, the sadness of the circumstances healed in the end by the hearty and uncluttered simplicity of the Rankins' delivery, and their open and honest, down-home connection with their fans.
A special addition to the program was Anne Murray's daughter Dawn Langstroth performing a very short set of her own material. Her voice is spectacular, her songs more than promising.
Like Molly Rankin, she's a rare talent, another champ in the making.
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