Rankin Family
Bands / Ensembles
The Rankin Family, known from 1998 on as the Rankins, was a Canadian Celtic folk and country group from Mabou, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In the 1970s, five of the Rankin siblings, Geraldine, Genevieve, David, John Morris and Raylene, sang at weddings, dances and community events around Cape Breton. When the older three left home, Jimmy, Cookie (Carol) and Heather took their places. In 1989, John Morris (fiddle, piano, bass), Raylene, Jimmy (guitar, vocals, the group's main songwriter), Cookie and Heather formally formed the band and released their first album independently. After selling 70,000 records on their own, they signed with EMI Music Canada in 1992, and their album Fare Thee Well Love sold 400,000 copies in Canada. North Country, produced by John Jennings, brought four Juno Awards, including Group of the Year. The group moved steadily from fiddle-based traditional music toward contemporary roots music with more original songs. Raylene left in 1998, and the group disbanded in September 1999 after its final album, Uprooted. John Morris died in a car accident on January 16, 2000. The remaining siblings reunited in 2006 with John Morris's daughter Molly, released Reunion in 2007 and toured Canada in 2007 and 2009. Raylene died on September 30, 2012.
In the newsletter
- No. 5 Oct.—Dec. 1995