The National Music Centre is gearing up for an unforgettable evening with multiple JUNO and CCMA Award-winning singer-songwriter Jimmy Rankin. For anyone who grew up in Eastern Canada, the sounds of Jimmy Rankin and The Rankin Family bring back strong ties to home and nostalgic memories of summer road trips listening to music in the car.

Now, Rankin is on tour for his latest album, Harvest Highway, and he will be playing at Studio Bell on September 6, 2024. He will be reunited with his Martin D-35 acoustic guitar that’s currently on loan to the National Music Centre.

I was so excited to chat with the wonderful Jimmy Rankin about his upcoming concert and his latest album. Here is that conversation, edited slightly to fit this format.

 

WHERE Calgary: How did your newest album, Harvest Highway, come to be?

Jimmy Rankin: I release my latest record last year and it’s called Harvest Highway. It’s the second of a trilogy of records with this theme. I lived in Nashville from 2010 to 2018. When I returned from Nashville, I made a coming home record called Moving East. It featured all east coast musicians and it’s an east coast theme. It’s very acoustic and rough and raw. The latest album I made is similar to that. It’s still all east coast musicians and themes. It’s called Harvest Highway after a highway in Nova Scotia.

The album cover is by a friend of mine who just passed away. June Leaf is her name. She’s a New Yorker who spent the past 50 years in Cape Breton. I asked if I could use that painting. It’s a beautiful painting of a blackbird that she created when she first came to Cape Breton. Fortunately, she was able to hear the record and see the cover and she was very happy about how it turned out.

Her husband, Robert Frank, was a famous photographer. I’ve been a fan of their work for years. I was able to use one of his photos for my last album cover Moving East. That’s part of the theme too, having east coast art on the album covers. I’ve known June and Robert for a long time and I’m very happy I was able to use their work for my albums. They were inspirational for many years.

WC: Is it true you wrote the title track, Harvest Highway, actually on the side of that highway?

JR: Yeah that’s true. I never realized it was called that name – harvest highway. It’s a beautiful drive. I was driving to a gig in late summer and I was just taking in the scenery. It was a nice drive and a beautiful day and an idea came to me – a verse and a course. Like a lot of writers, I use a voice recorder on my phone to make notes. When I was making Harvest Highway, the record, I went through my phone for ideas and I came across that voice note and it had an explanation mark beside it because I knew it was a good song. I finished it up and it became the title of the record.

I did the photos for the album in that area too. I went down there just to be inspired for the album.

 

WC: Can you tell me about how you recorded this album, and why you chose this unique style?

JR: I’ve recorded this way before. I’ve been making records since 1989 and there are different methods of recording. It’s common to build a track by layering it and then you go in and do your vocals. It's a very polished sound. I made these last two records with Joel Plaskett. When I was making my Moving East record, I was looking for someone who wasn’t just a producer, but who had roots in rock and pop and knew folk as well. I was driving in Cape Breton and heard one of his songs on the radio, so I called Joel and he said he was able to do it.

We recorded a lot of live vocals and live band. I wanted to get that “off the floor” immediacy of music, not so much the polishing and layering of things. We assembled a band and the chemistry was really good. The record is mostly live vocals off the floor with the band. You usually do several takes of something, so to do a vocal take without much polishing is hard. It was so much fun. It was just like making music in the kitchen.

Also on this record, which is something that’s new for me, I play keyboard on two or three tracks. The music on this record is honest. It’s live music with live playing with the band working to capture the feeling of the song in the moment.

 

WC: Do you find the audiences feel the songs differently in different areas of the country?

JR: I may write about regional themes but I always try to make it universal so someone on the other side of the world can understand what I’m writing about. They definitely hit home on the east coast because a lot of my themes come from this part of the world. When I started writing music with my family, we were basically writing and making music that we knew that we wanted to share with other people and other places. I’ve always done that and continued to do that.

My music has travelled around the world in places that I’ve played, through records, and over the internet. I think people basically respond the same. To me, it’s like art. People might get a different feeling from it or a different experience from it, but it resonates well.

When I go across the country, I play to a lot of Canadians but there are always Maritimers who come out to the show. They always have a story. People will say, “My family took me to the Rankins and that was my first show. Now I’m taking my kid to their first show.” For a lot of people there’s a nostalgia to it.

 

WC: What’s the atmosphere like performing at Studio Bell?

I really like the theatre. They have great gear and the staff is really great there too. It’s also a museum and so when they opened they asked the Rankin Family if we could donate some memorabilia for the museum. I asked one of my family members to find this guitar. It was the first good guitar that I owned. It’s a Martin D-35 acoustic guitar that I bought in New York at a pawn shop. It’s the guitar I played for most of The Rankin Family records and I played some of my solo songs on it too.

My most famous songs were written on that guitar. The one that’s the most successful is a Rankin Family song I wrote called “Fare Thee Well Love.” That song is in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

They asked if I would play that guitar during the show. I know there’s still some songs left in it.

 

WC: Do you have any plans to enjoy the area when you’re not on stage?

JR: I always love to get out and take a walk around. When I do have time, I try to sightsee. Calgary has some great restaurants and it’s a beautiful city to me. I always like visiting there. I’ve been all across Canada, and up north and across the different provinces. The western provinces have a different aesthetic. We have the ocean. Out west, the prairies are their ocean. I really appreciate that.

I love driving through and seeing different places in Canada. And fortunately, with my career, I’ve been all over different places in Canada that tourists don’t get to see. I’m very grateful I’ve gotten to see Canada in that way and meet people from different places and different towns.

Interview by Kate Barker