The Rankins Online - Articles July-December 2000 - The Official unOfficial Website of the Rankins

MacDonald and his cast of 10 of the island's top musicians, actors and dancers cut loose with hilarious comedy, foot stompin' music and dazzling dance that delighted audiences from Glace Bay to Yarmouth in a June tour of the province.

Howie's Celtic Brew continues the tradition of the Cape Breton Summertime Revue which spotllighted the island's music and comedy from 1985 to 1998. The show toured widely and served as a training ground for many successful artists.

MacDonald has spent the past 10 years as the fiddler for The Rankins, touring the world and performing on all their recordings. He has also released eight of his own recordings. In 1997 his comic talents were unveiled during a season with the Cape Breton Summertime Revue.

Joining MacDonald for the Whycocomagh show are his two sisters, Marilyn and Cheryl MacDonald, band leader Al Bennett, Tracey Dares on piano, Patrick Gillis on guitar, Matt Foulds on percussion, John Chiasson, vocals/guitar, Helen MacDonald on fiddle and Dawn MacDonald on piano.

Tickets are now on sale from Burton MacIntyre (902) 756-2769 and MacKeigan's Pharmacy.

Barn dance doors open tonight

July 5, 2000 - Halifax Herald

The first Wednesday night summer barn dance is set for tonight at the barn on the grounds of the Normaway Inn in Margaree Valley.

Howie MacDonald, just coming off a well-received tour of Howie's Celtic Brew, will be featured fiddler. Howie will be joined by his fiddling cousin Dougie MacDonald, Creignish fiddler Wendy MacIsaac (who tours with Mary Jane Lamond), Mac Morin (piano player for Natalie MacMaster,and young fiddler Gabrielle MacLennan of Judique. Pat Gillis will join them on piano.

The doors to the barn swing open at 6:30 p.m. with a concert beginning at 7:30 p.m. and a dance following at 10 p.m.

Admission is $6 adults and $3 children.

On Friday night John Allan Cameron will headline a concert at the barn.

Special guests are Hadhirgaan, 16 young fiddlers from Scotland's Orkney Islands. The music starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 adults, $5 students, and children under 12 get in free.

Creighton collection will come alive in Lunenburg

July 6, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Stephen Cooke / Entertainment Reporter

Nova Scotia's rich cultural heritage comes down off the archival shelves this summer at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival, in the form of a new project called Our Ancestry in Song.

A special event held in conjunction with the festival's 15th anniversary Aug. 10-13, Our Ancestry in Song was developed by the festival's programming committee with noted folklorist Clary Croft as a way to reconnect material in the Helen Creighton Collection with the founding cultures of Nova Scotia from which Dr. Creighton assembled her monumental selection of folk songs and stories.

Conceived by Folk Harbour Festival program committee members Don and Anna Osburn, and made possible by funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, Our Ancestry in Song will feature works from the Creighton Collection sung by members of the region's founding cultures in daytime and mainstage concerts as well as workshops.

Performers include Lunenburg singer Kevin Rhyno representing the German community, Mi'kmaq singer and filmmaker Cathy Martin, Acadian singer/songwriter Ron Bourgeois, North Preston performer and educator Anne Johnson-MacDonald and, with songs from the British Isles, Gaelic singer and instructor Margo Carruthers.

"The performers will work together, not just represent their communities," said Don Osburn at an informal press gathering Wednesday night at the Split Crow. "The spirit of collaboration should make quite a difference to the festival."

Many of the performances will also be filmed for use in a National Film Board documentary currently in production on the life and work of Dr. Helen Creighton.

"The Folk Harbour Festival seemed like the ideal venue to see her legacy in action," said NFB producer Donna Davies, who will combine archival footage with interviews, performances from Our Ancestry in Song as well as artists like Mary Jane Lamond, Lennie Gallant and Raylene Rankin.

For more information on the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival, write to 194c Lincoln St., PO Box 655, Lunenburg, NS, B0J 2C0, phone (902) 634-3180, fax (902) 634-9568 or e-mail info@folkharbour.com The festival can also be reached on the Web at http://www.folkharbour.com

Concert Under Stars set for Antigonish

July 11, 2000 - Halifax Herald

The Antigonish Highland Society officially opens its 137th Highland Games with the annual Concert Under the Stars at 8 p.m. on Friday at Columbus Field.

This year, the grand finale will be dedicated to the memory of John Morris Rankin. The Concert Under the Stars is a celebration of local talent with performers from all traditional Celtic disciplines, from singers to dancers to musicians.

The lineup includes recording artists Jug In Hand, Jon Matthews, and Dara Smith, as well as champion Highland dancer Stephanie Grant, the Antigonish Highland Society Pipe Band, Maureen Fraser's School of Dance, piper Iain MacInnes, the St. FX Concert Choir, guitarist Junior Fraser, Gaelic singer Mary Patricia Rankin, pianist Brian England and a trio made up of Peter Rawding, Jim Sears and Brent Bannerman.

Gordon Maclean of Port Hawkesbury will play the piano for the grand finale, which will also include nearly 50 fiddlers from Guysborough, Antigonish and Pictou Counties in recognition of John Morris Rankin's memorable contribution to the music of Nova Scotia.

Shakespeare's New Shake

July 11, 2000 - Daily Variety

William Shakespeare is getting another movie moment. Macbeth is being retold in 'Scotland, PA, which has just begun production in Nova Scotia.

The pic, produced by Abandon Pictures with Paddy Wagon Prods., toplines James LeGros, Maura Tierney, Christopher Walken, Kevin Corrigan, James Rebhorn, Tom Guiry, Andy Dick, Amy Smart, and Heather Rankin. Written and directed by Billy Morrisette, the pic places Shakespeare's tale of guilt and betrayal in the unlikely background of a fast-food eatery in the early ' 70s. Walken plays a detective investigating the murder of the local restaurateur, and focuses on Joe "Mac" McBeth (LeGros) and his ambitious wife (Tierney) who bought the eatery and turned it into a fast-food mecca.

Paddy Wagons' Richard Shepard and Jon Stern are producing, with Abandon's Karen Lauder and Marcus Ticotin exec. producing.

Raylene Rankin climbs on board for Lunenburg Folk Harbour Fest

July 16, 2000 - Halifax Herald

Raylene Rankin will perform at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival Aug. 10 to 13 in a special concert on Sunday, Aug. 13, at 4 p.m. at the Wharf Stage.

Rankin has recently been part of a special presentation with the Kitchener-Waterloo symphony, based on the work of folklorist Helen Creighton, with Scott Macmillan at the helm. She will perform with Macmillan in Lunenburg.

It is a rare appearance by Rankin, who left The Rankin Family in 1998, a year before the group's retirement, to spend more time with her young son.

The National Film Board will film Rankin's concert as part of a documentary on the legacy of Helen Creighton, entitled A Sigh and A Wish, produced by Donna Davies. An NFB film crew will be in Lunenburg during the festival filming a number of artists influenced by the music collected by Creighton including Rankin, Lennie Gallant and Mary Jane Lamond.

The traditional music of Nova Scotia will also be featured in a related presentation of the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival. Our Ancestry In Song is a celebration of Nova Scotia's musical multiculturalism, as documented in the Helen Creigton Collection, to be presented through concerts and workshops. Clary Croft will lead musicians, singers and educators in the program.

For more information or tickets contact the festival office, 902-634-3180 or e-mail info@folkharbour.com. For complete schedule visit www.folkharbour.com.

Judique Flyer steams ahead
Cape Breton's master fiddler Buddy MacMaster rolls along with new release

July 27, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Stephen Pedersen / Arts Reporter

The last train left the station long ago. But The Judique Flyer, better known today as master Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster, is still making regular stops.

At the age of 76 MacMaster, who was recently named a member of the Order of Canada, continues to fly (though not by train these days), down a track that takes him from his home just by the church in Judique as you head to Inverness on Route 19, all the way to Scotland, the Yukon, Montana, Halifax and stops between.

Yet, when home, he has a reputation for not being able to turn down a request to play at a party or wedding. He still plays weekly dances in Cape Breton, and when he does, according to guitarist, friend and musical collaborator Dave MacIsaac, the fiddlers in town take all the front row seats.

"He's got it all - tone, timing, phrasing, expression, dynamics, choice of tunes. He's almost the perfect fiddler. And he's had it all for a long time. My father, who was also a fiddler, heard him at 18. Buddy was Buddy at 18 years old," MacIsaac says.

MacIsaac accompanies MacMaster on two tracks on MacMaster's new CD, The Judique Flyer, which, incredibly, given his stature in the world, is only his second recording, following 1989's Judique on the Floor, (although amateur tapes made at dances do show up from time to time).

The CD, officially released last Sunday afternoon in the Judique Community Centre, features MacMaster playing 14 of his choicest medleys with 14 different accompanists, all, with the exception of MacIsaac, pianists.

"It was (executive producer) Stephen MacDonald's idea," MacMaster said over the phone from Judique earlier this week where I caught him between his mid-morning tea and getting in the car for a trip to Port Hawkesbury.

"I thought it would be a pretty good idea. All are accomplished players. A good accompanist has to have good timing - to be right with you - and a good touch. They all have different touches - I can hear the difference."

"When you have good accompaniment, it's easier to play - it puts you in the mood."

The list of pianists on the CD is a roll-call of some of Cape Breton's best known players: Joey Beaton, Betty Lou Beaton, Tracey Dares, Marie MacLellan, Maybelle Chisholm MacQueen, Dave MacIsaac, Joel Chiasson, Jackie Dunn, Mac Morin, Hilda Chaisson, Mary Jessie MacDonald, Howie MacDonald, Doug MacPhee and Mary Elizabeth MacInnis.

Listening closely to The Judique Flyer is a rich experience. Each accompanist throws a subtly different light on MacMaster's playing, making you even more aware of the inspiring lilt of his phrasing, his rock-solid "timing", and the wealth of subtly-integrated graces that make his sound and rhythm sparkle.

His combination of tunes in the 14 medleys is typically superb. "He's got great taste in putting medleys of tunes together," MacIsaac says. "Some tunes are good to come out of a strathspey, others not. A lot of Buddy's medleys have become standard medleys."

As with all great players, the origin of their excellence is a mystery. MacMaster learned to play from listening to his mother lilt Gaelic tunes and hearing Gaelic in his house as he was growing up.

"I don't speak Gaelic, but I have a Gaelic accent from listening to Gaelic speakers," MacMaster says. "There is a debate about the effect (of the Gaelic) on fiddling. I think it does have an effect. Some people in Cape Breton say the word 'community' with a drawl on the 'u'. That's the Gaelic influence."

Perhaps that drawl finds its way into the way MacMaster plays certain melody notes in a tune, dwelling ever so slightly on the note before lifting off it.

It's a style he developed playing for community dances and through years of practice. As railway telegrapher, station agent and a variety of other positions for 45 years working for Canadian National Railways, MacMaster would often find himself alone in a station with time on his hands. He used it to play the violin.

He sometimes played for waiting passengers, and occasionally when the tracks were clear, according to Paul MacDonald's excellent liner notes on The Judique Flyer CD, other station agents would phone in their good-nights and sometimes ask Buddy to play a tune. Still more agents would patch in. "Buddy's nightly serenades were eagerly anticipated at depots throughout the Maritimes," MacDonald writes.

"I did some playing in country stations," MacMaster, who retired in 1988, recalls. "Sometimes after midnight, when the line was clear. I used to hear the telegraph wire going, and I would pick up a bit of news from the dispatchers. I'd hear what was going on all the time."

MacMaster didn't learn to read music till he was 23, a good eight years after he began playing for dances. He was working in Antigonish at the time and picked up an instruction book in a bookstore.

While many of the vast number of tunes in his repertoire (it covers three centuries of music according to Paul MacDonald), were learned through listening to other players, he applied his new reading skill to learning tunes from books.

MacIsaac says that when Buddy learns a tune from a book he pretty well plays it as it was written, a quality that shows up in the exquisite correctness of his playing, which is strongly projected by the attention he gives to every note.

Though retired, MacMaster says he's not bored. At home he gets up, has his breakfast, says a few prayers, reads the paper. "Sometimes I go to the violin - go through a few tunes."

This summer has been extremely busy. He's been to Utah for a week of workshops, Halifax for Scotia Festival of Music, Edmonton, Montana, the Yukon, and Scotland for three weeks.

"The next morning (after Scotland)," he says, "I was teaching at the Ceilidh Trail School of Music (in Broad Cove, Inverness County). Sunday afternoon there was the CD release. Right now I have to go to Port Hawkesbury to get some grub. This afternoon there's a party in Inverness. I'm playing for the rest of the week."

"I got a lot of miles on me," he adds. "Like an old car."

The CD release party last Sunday was crowded. MacIsaac went along to accompany MacMaster on some tunes. When not accompanying, he says, "I just sat back and watched Buddy's bow - those little grace notes he puts in - very tasty."

"He just has the magic touch. You take a tune like Miss MacLeod's Reel, which has been played to death. He just puts the Buddy to it."

Cape Breton roots music strong on CD

July 29, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Stephen Cooke

It should come as no surprise they gave the godfather of Cape Breton fiddling, Buddy MacMaster, the Order of Canada; one listen to his new CD The Judique Flyer (Stephen MacDonald Productions) will tell you he's a national treasure.

MacMaster is to Celtic music what Dizzy Gillespie was to jazz, an elder statesman who inspires and instructs others while maintaining his own distinctive style through the years and the changes time brings. But most importantly, he loves to play. Anywhere, anytime and with anyone who shares his lifelong devotion to traditional Gaelic music.

And who wouldn't want to play with Buddy? The Judique Flyer features 14 of the best accompanists on or off the island, from young prot�g�s Joel Chaisson and Mac Morin to veteran pianists Mary Jessie MacDonald (who's been playing with MacMaster since the '50s) and Marie MacLellan of Richmond County's famous MacLellan Trio. And there are those who have raised the art of accompanying to new levels, like guitarist Dave MacIsaac and pianists Tracey Dares and Doug MacPhee.

As a result, each track has its own unique flavour. Captain O'Kane with Dares is dark and haunting, and a set of tricky hornpipes with Howie MacDonald at the keys is as joyful and jovial as you'd expect from a pair of master musicians and longtime friends.

For a bigger dose of Dares, the nimble-fingered Cape Bretoner has a new album recorded in collaboration with husband and piper Paul K. MacNeil, Castlebaymusic.com (Gigs and Reels). The CD not only showcases her own sparkling style and MacNeil's bracing pipes, but also makes room for some Gaelic singing by MacNeil's father and family and includes stellar back-up from guitarists Dave MacIsaac and Gordie Sampson, bassist Eddie Woodsworth and Barra MacNeils Stewart and Kyle.

Playing together, Dares and MacNeil are a musical match made in heaven, with her well-meshed balance of melody and rhythm on keyboards and his pitch-perfect fingering on the chanter.

Dares also takes a few solo spins, like the luscious Angie's, a flowing ballad cushioned by Woodsworth's bowed bass and Kyle MacNeil's viola, while MacNeil seems to challenge himself at every turn, always coming out ahead. The guitar/pipes counterpoint on Keltic Drive has a "How does he DO that?" quality that will leave lesser players scratching their heads.

Judique's Glenn Graham has always been a favourite among Cape Breton fiddlers, if only for the amount of meat on the notes that come off his strings, and the intense drive of his playing. An extremely rhythmic player, he'll drive his feet like jackhammers while working his bow, until the floorboards cry out for mercy.

Graham's newest album, Step Outside (Bowbeat) is a marked departure from his previous Let 'Er Rip which, while gritty and forceful, won't quite prepare you for the broad range of sounds Graham dips his bow into here. For example, Little Donald's Wife grafts a traditional reel and lyrics written with cousin Rodney MacDonald onto a pulsating techno beat - likely making this the first modern dance track written by a provincial MLA - while Graham's Tomorrow is a fiddle-free roots rocker with sister Amy's aching lead vocal. Amy's something of a revelation, imagine Cape Breton's answer to Shelby Lynne, and her distinctive voice deserves its own showcase, the sooner the better.

Graham lends his own husky vocals to the ballad Whispers From Heaven and Little Donald's Wife, and his singing is just like his playing, bold and packed with feeling.

In case you're wondering, yes, Graham does play the fiddle on Step Outside, ably supported by an all-star band that includes Gordie Sampson, drummer Matthew Foulds and keyboardist Mac Morin. On the rollicking Jig Jam and two sets of Strathspeys and Reels, Graham drives 'er in the tradition of the great Judique fiddlers like Buddy MacMaster, while his self-penned air intro to Lost is slow and mournful, until Sampson's growling guitar kicks the tune into reel overdrive.

A musical marriage
Dares, MacNeil combine Celtic pipes and piano

August 3, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Stephen Cooke / Entertainment Reporter

By teaming up for the first time on CD, Cape Breton pianist Tracey Dares and piper Paul K. MacNeil prove their marriage is a match made in musical heaven, even if the first time sparks flew isn't exactly etched in stone.

"Neither one of us can actually remember where we met," says Dares from her East Bay home, "but it was around 1991 or '92. I'm thinking it was during a pipe band concert, Paul used to be in the Halifax Police Pipe Band, and the odd time they'd play concerts at the Cohn and bring in guest artists like Dave MacIsaac or John Morris Rankin.

"One time I got the call to do it, and that's probably where we crossed paths for the first time. But I can't remember, isn't that pathetic? I guess it wasn't love at first sight," she laughs.

Love at first sound, perhaps, with ample evidence available on their new album Castlebaymusic.com. The couple officially launch the disc tonight at the Iona Branch Legion at 9:30 p.m. with a host of musical friends, including guitarist Gordie Sampson, drummer Matt Foulds and bassist Ed Woodsworth. Fiddler Howie MacDonald and pianist Jackie Dunn will be on hand to play a set so Dares and MacNeil actually get a chance to celebrate.

In a clever bit of self-promotion, the title of the CD is also the address of the couple's website, which not only tells you everything you need to know about them and their music, but provides an online retail outlet for artists like themselves, Howie MacDonald, Buddy MacDonald and Dave MacIsaac.

"We've had orders from all over; New Zealand, Colorado, Oklahoma, Sydney Mines. . .It's part of our goal to make our living from home and be able to work at home without being on the road for months at a time."

Dares will be playing off the island when she rejoins Howie MacDonald's Celtic Brew, which starts again at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on Aug. 17, but it's no wonder she'd rather stay home; the gorgeous view of the Bras d'Or Lakes that greets you on the Web site and the CD jacket is from their back porch, overlooking Castle Bay.

In fact, most of Castlebaymusic.com was recorded at home, including the remarkable Gaelic track Nighrean Donn written by the late Domhnall MacPharlian from Margaree.

"That was a special night, a lot of Paul's family was involved," Dares recalls. "His father is Roddie C. MacNeil from Barra Glen and he's quite a respected man across Cape Breton and Nova Scotia - and I dare to say the Atlantic Provinces - recognized for his Gaelic speaking.

"He'll travel anywhere with his songs, and teach to anyone that he can, so he was the one in charge that night. We had all the nieces and nephews involved, the youngest that sang that night was three, singing the chorus of this Gaelic song their mother had taught them."

Like many records involving Dares - she also appears on master fiddler Buddy MacMaster's new CD The Judique Flyer - Castlebaymusic.com is about preserving a part of Cape Breton culture. In this case it's MacNeil's Island style of bagpipe playing that's surfaced recently on CDs like this and Barry Shears' A Cape Breton Piper.

"There are fewer pipers than fiddlers up here, and Cape Breton style pipers are even fewer," says Dares. "There's only a handful that can do the meat and potatoes of playing strathspeys and reels with a dance feel.

"It's not something you hear a lot on the pipes, which is why there aren't as many recordings out there. But it's darn good."

Favourite folk gather in Lunenburg
Festival kicks off tonight with new, familiar faces on roster

August 10, 2000 - Halifax Herald - By Stephen Pedersen / Arts Reporter

As it heads into its 15th year, Nova Scotia's flagship folk festival in Lunenburg knows what it wants.

"We're not looking for who's hot, or who's big," says Annapolis Valley folk singer/songwriter Don Osburn, co-programmer with his wife Anna of the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival which launches tonight and runs day and night till Sunday.

"The theme of this year's festival is to bring back some of our favourites of the past 14 years - people who have really connected with our audiences in the past, people who make an audience feel that they've just heard something special."

Programmers had a lot of choices to make, depending, of course on availability. Over the years new and upcoming bands featured at Folk Harbour have included The Rankin Family, Great Big Sea, The Barra MacNeils, Richard Wood, and Lennie Gallant, among others, all when they were beginning to glow, and before they got too hot for the festival's modest budget.

So who's coming back? Lennie, for one. He's the headliner on Sunday's closing show in the mainstage tent atop Blockhouse Hill. There's also P.E.I.'s Barachois to headline tonight's opener. Mary Jane Lamond winds up Friday's show, and Ottawa newcomer, at least in Eastern Canada, Lynn Miles, is featured Saturday night. Raylene Rankin makes a special appearance Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. on the Wharf stage on the Lunenburg waterfront.

The lineup continues with sets by returning acts Evans and Doherty, Jeff Davis, Artisan, Ken Whiteley, Gordon Stobbe, Clary Croft and many others.

New England's Forebitter from Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, will entertain with a sea-chantey set at noon Saturday, aboard the Theresa E. Connor, one of the last of Lunenburg's working schooners, through the co-operation of the Lunenburg Fisheries Museum. That may be the most unusual folk-festival stage ever, but for this unique festival, the whole town of Lunenburg's a stage with daily performances and/or workshops at the Opera House, the Old Firehall, the Boscawen Inn, the Heritage Bandstand, the Anglican Parish Hall, the Presbyterian Church Hall, the Wharf and the Tent.

"Jeff Davis is back after two years," Osburn says. "We owe him a lot. He's always been a friend of the festival, as well as the biggest influence on programming with his advice and recommendations of performers. We've taken his advice more than anybody's."

"Artisan (a capella vocal trio from England) also connected to people in a big way. Audiences laughed and listened and closed their eyes. "I think Lynn Miles will be the real eye-opener this year. She's never been to the East before. I've been a fan of hers for several years. She's an excellent guitar player and her songs are bittersweet. Her next to last album was called Slightly Haunted--that's a good description."

Apart from favourite artists of the past, this year's festival features an original take on the Helen Creighton folk song collection. In a featured set called Our Ancestry In Song, an idea originally conceived by Anna Osburn, folksongs of the Mi'kmaq, Acadian, Black, Gaelic and German traditions, will be performed alongside the better known Anglo-Celtic traditions from theBritish Isles.

"Last year Clary Croft published a biography of Dr. Creighton. Anna and I were fascinated by it," Osburn says. "We didn't know that Dr. Creighton had collected in all the founding cultures of the province. "Anna said, 'Why not get representatives of all the founding cultures, and commission them to go in to the Helen Creighton Collection and get songs from their own cultures?'

"In some cases the artists didn't know this material exists. We found out that we are facilitating the cultures' discovery of their own heritage. We called Clary, told him about the concept, and asked him to present it as a cohesive program. "All the performers - Cathy Martin (Mi'kmaq), Anne Johnson-MacDonald (Black), Ron Bourgeois (Acadian), Margo Carruthers (Gaelic), Kevin Rhyno (German) and Clary (British Isles) - will perform on stage together, work with each other, and share their cultures." The set will be presented on Friday night's mainstage program.

The National Film Board will be on site in Lunenburg this weekend to shoot performance footage of Raylene Rankin, Lennie Gallant and Mary Jane Lamond, all of whose careers have been influenced by the Helen Creighton collection. The film, a documentary on the legacy of Creighton, is entitled A Sigh and A Wish (the title comes from a line in Farewell to Nova Scotia), and is being produced by Donna Davies.

The formula for this year's Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival has hit a chord with audiences. "Advance ticket sales have doubled over last year. It's the first time in the 15 years of the festival that Festival passes are running near to sold out. It means everyone wants to take in the whole program," festival co-ordinator Ben Anderson said Wednesday morning, Tickets for individual shows are still available and as of press time there were still a few passes left.

Osburn emphasizes that, because the festival takes place in the town of Lunenburg itself, it does not have the capacity to grow, and that's a good thing in his view. "The flavour of the festival depends on that," he says. "I'd encourage people to get their tickets as soon as possible."

A Wonderful Tribute
Dozens of Rankins expected to attend John Morris Concert

August 11, 2000 - Halifax Daily News - by Jo-Anne MacDonald

A concert in Antigonish tomorrow in which John Morris Rankin was to perform will now be a tribute to his memory. About 42 members of Rankin's immediate and extended family are expected to attend the emotional outdoor concert at St. F.X. University.

"The entertainers are all very good friends of (Rankin) and this is their chance to be together and to pay tribute to him," says event co-chairman Noreen Nunn. The concert at Oland's Stadium is part of Come Home 2000, a four-day festival hosted by St. F.X. and the town of Antigonish. The Barra MacNeils, Rawlins Cross, Mary Jane Lamond, Men of the Deeps and Denis Ryan will perform. Thousands of alumni from across Canada and around the world will be in town for the largest reunion in the university's 147-year history.

Rankin, who graduated with an arts degree from St. F.X. in 1980, agreed to perform at the Millennium Mega show two months before his death in a car accident Jan. 16. He was the first to sign on to the event, expected to draw 8,000.

Organizers thought of turning it into a tribute in the weeks after Rankin's funeral. They consulted Rankin's widow, Sally, and she quietly agreed, says Nunn.

Since then, 42 Rankins, including Sally and their two children, have confirmed their attendance, and a special section on the football field has been reserved for them. Although Jimmy, Raylene and Heather are expected, they have not been asked to perform.

"They are here as our guests for a presentation which they have agreed to to honour John Morris," says Nunn.

"We want them to come and enjoy themselves and if there's something spontaneous then that will be their decision," says organizer Bill Kiely.

Fiddler Howie MacDonald, who played with the Rankin Family and planned to accompany Rankin at the St. F.X. concert, will now perform with guitarist Dave MacIsaac and pianist Tracey Dares.

He has been asked several times this summer to perform at tributes, but has refused because it was too soon and he did not want to intrude in the family's grief.

"But this had turned into a tribute after I had already gotten involved," explains MacDonald, who is pleased the family has agreed to it. "It's a chance to get together and talk about old times, share some memories."

He has not decided what he will perform, but is thinking of My Lilly, a Gaelic fiddle tune he and Rankin used to play.

Near the end of the concert St. F.X. will present the family with a framed photo of Rankin, one selected by his wife that shows him smiling. The photo with an inscription will hang in the Celtic Studies section of the Angus L. Macdonald library on campus.

"We thought that is the most appropriate place because it was Celtic music that he was most famous for," says Kiely.

All the entertainers will be on stage tomorrow to sing the finale, Rise Again, a song made famous by Raylene Rankin.

"Definitely, it's going to bring back some memories for the family, and it probably will be very emotional, but we're hoping that the evening will be such a wonderful tribute to him that it will be a happy occasion for them," says Kiely.

X Marks the spot this weekend in Antigonish

August 12, 2000 - Halifax Herald - By Jackie Fitton

Antigonish - The largest gathering of St. Francis Xavier alumni - estimated to be in the thousands - is expected for millennium celebrations this weekend.

"We've already sold several thousand tickets to alumni from across North America and around the world," says Helen Murphy of St. F.X.'s communications department.

Welcome to Come Home 2000 is the event of the summer that's calling back all St. Francis Xavier University alumni and former residents of the town and county of Antigonish.

The university is celebrating the new millennium, and wants alumni to 'come home' and join the celebrations, said Ms. Murphy.

The four-day event began Thursday and wraps up Sunday with activities geared for the family. A lobster supper, golf tournament, geology trip, guided tour of the Fairmont hiking trail and a ceilidh at Crystal Cliffs are among the many scheduled events.

As well there is a beach volleyball tournament at Pomquet beach and the Coady Institute will host games from around the globe. A millennium concert Saturday night will feature The Barra MacNeils, Mary Jane Lamond, Rawlins Cross, Men of the Deeps, Howie MacDonald and others. Master of ceremonies is Denis Ryan. Tickets will be available at the gate.

Sunday's activities conclude with a five-kilometre fun run and walk for the entire family, followed by the Come Home Mass at St. F.X. chapel.

ST. F.X. fetes John Morris
Rankin Sister Sings Tribute to "Late" Brother

August 13, 2000 - Halifax Daily News - by Jo-Anne MacDonald

The music of John Morris Rankin that brings both pain and pleasure to his family filled the still Antigonish air last night.

Celtic artists paid tribute to the late Cape Breton fiddler with the ancient music his family band, The Rankins, helped to bring to the world stage.

Among the 6,000 scattered on the St. F.X. football field to listen were his siblings and bandmates, Raylene, Jimmy and Heather Rankin. Cookie, the fifth Rankin in the band, is in Tennessee.

"John Morris must be guiding his fingers," Antigonish fiddler Kendra MacGillivray said as her younger brother, Troy, played a selection of Rankin's tunes on the piano. They were followed on stage by the Barra MacNeils, Rawlins Cross and Mary Jane Lamond.

In a spontaneous performance, Raylene led all the artists in an emotional finale, the singing of Rise Again, her signature song.

John Morris Rankin was to perform in the concert, part of a university-and-town-sponsored festival called Come Home 2000. Organizers decided to turn it into a tribute to him in the weeks after his death in a car accident Jan. 16. He was 40 years old.

His music, though, was here. Howie MacDonald, Dave MacIsaac and Tracey Dares played tunes Rankin composed on fiddle and piano. For brother Jimmy, who is just now starting to once again listen to fiddle tunes his brother cherished, it is a bittersweet sound.

"I associate John Morris with fiddling, so it's kind of weird to listen to that stuff. It brings back memories. I'm starting to listen to it now and it brings back good memories," said Jimmy in an interview before the concert. He has signed a contract with EMI and is planning to put out a solo recording by the fall. He couldn't describe the sound, only to say it's "fresh."

Sister Heather has turned to acting, landing small roles in films, the most recent in May. She, too, finds it difficult to listen to the music she spent 10 years making with her family.

At the end of the evening, his widow, Sally, and their two children, Michael and Molly, unveiled a framed photo of a smiling John Morris Rankin that will hang in the university's library. The inscription reads: "In memory of John Morris Rankin, 40, dedicated alumnus, loving husband, father and brother, loyal citizen, ambassador for his province and country, passionate towards his Scottish heritage, renowned musician and true friend."

Tears, melodies flow for Rankin
Late Musician honoured at St. F.X.

August 14, 2000 - Halifax Herald - By Frank Campbell

Antigonish - They flocked by the hundreds to the St. Francis Xavier University millennium concert on Saturday night. And the 5,000-plus people attending the outdoor music fest at Oland Stadium in Antigonish got their money's worth.

Fiddler Kendra MacGillivray kicked off the five-hour marathon shindig, getting the crowd dancing to her up-tempo set. Howie MacDonald and Dave MacIsaac got the crowd thinking and clapping, the Men of the Deeps and the Barra MacNeils got them singing along and, finally, Raylene Rankin got them crying.

The concert, highlighting the four-day Come Home 2000 celebration at St. F.X., was a tribute to John Morris Rankin, the Cape Breton fiddler and pianist who died tragically in a car accident in January.

John Morris, who graduated from St. F.X. in 1980, was originally scheduled to play at the concert but after his death, the event was revised as a tribute.

John Morris's wife, Sally, and their children, Michael and Molly, joined university president Sean Riley in unveiling a large picture of the longtime Rankin Family band member. The picture, which will hang in the Celtic Studies department at St. F.X., is inscribed with a description of Rankin as a dedicated X alumnus, a loving father and brother and a renowned musician who was passionate about his Scottish heritage.

The Men of the Deeps, Rawlins Cross and the other featured artists sang Rise Again as a closing tribute to John Morris and by the time his sister Raylene joined in with her familiar version of the song, there weren't a lot of dry eyes on the drizzle-dampened St. F.X. football field.

Sally Rankin, seated with family and friends in a section directly in front of the large stage, was impressed with the tribute concert.

"John Morris would want to thank St. F.X. for remembering him in such an appropriate way," she said. "As usual, St. F.X. delivered. The organization and thought associated with the tribute was amazing.

"The tribute reminded me of John Morris's gift for detail and fine-tuning. He would have been pleased with everything - the university, Denis (MC Denis Ryan) and all the artists, the audience and, of course, his family for their strength and appreciation of St. F.X."

That appreciation for St. F.X. and for John Morris's musical contributions on and beyond the campus were common threads as the concert lingered well past midnight.

MacGillivray and Gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond, both St. F.X. graduates, were the first two acts. MacGillivray's brother Troy offered a piano medley that included Bishop MacDonald's march, a piano solo that was a favourite of John Morris's.

MacDonald and MacIsaac, John Morris's longtime friends and musical accompanists, teamed up on fiddle and guitar, along with pianist Tracey Dares, for an instrumental medley, which MacDonald said included "a tune that John Morris wrote and never finished," and a Way to Mull River, another John Morris composition.

"It was a very long concert," said Janet MacIsaac, a Mabou resident who grew up near the Rankin family home and who graduated from St. F.X. in 1973 and 1977. "John Morris's friends and his family were there and I think he would have really appreciated that. There wasn't a lot of hoopla. It was nice and simple." And it was comfortable, despite the light rain and the elongated program.

"There was a feeling of closeness," said Sally Rankin, herself a 1981 graduate of X. "A feeling of closeness, good memories and hope."

Gallant wraps up 15th Folk Festival, Twice as many all-event passes sold this year

August 15, 2000 - Halifax Herald - By Stephen Pedersen / Arts Reporter

Lunenburg - Lennie Gallant rang down the curtain Sunday night on the 15th and perhaps most successful Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival. The tent on Blockhouse Hill was jammed to capacity as it was all four nights since Thursday's opening.

Yet festival co-ordinator Ben Anderson reports there were lots of single tickets unsold at the box office. What filled the tent were pass holders - more than twice as many all-events passes were sold as last year. "It was a complete success," Anderson said Sunday night at intermission during the final show. "The weather co-operated. The audiences were amazing.

"In the Opera House Saturday afternoon at three you couldn't get a seat. Even the balcony was filled. The only time that happened before was when we held the Sunday morning gospel concert there."

The unusually high response to advance ticket sales showed festival organizers that audiences were buying not just this or that artist, but the whole lineup. Sunday morning's gospel concert in the mainstage tent raised $3,300 for the local food bank. So many contributions of food were received, officials gave up trying to count it all.

Sunday afternoon capped all expectations. When Raylene Rankin hit the wharf stage at 4 p.m., Anderson said, festival staff were wondering whether they would have to close the gates.

Sunday night's wrap-up show began on a robust note with Forebitter's Craig Edwards, Geoff Kaufman, David Littlefield and Rick Spencer standing square and tall to the mikes and belting out songs of the sea.

Kevin Evans and Brian Doherty as emcees repeatedly convulsed the house with their off-the-cuff remarks and jokes. Evans is wickedly sharp with a retort, and nobody tells a joke with a surprise twist in the punchline better than Doherty.

Fiddler Gordon Stobbe is no slouch with the wicked comeback himself, and during his set, his frequent quips aimed at Evans's shameless (and tongue-in-cheek) self-promotion, generated witty counterpoint to his down-home fiddle tunes. Ranging from hoedowns to jazzy bluegrass and ending with a klezmer-style Bulgarian groove tune, which had the audience shouting "Hoy!" with unbridled enthusiasm, Stobbe, bassist Greg Simm and guitarist Skip Holmes created the first major mayhem of the evening.

Stobbe was preceded by festival debutante Sharon Nauss, a singer-songwriter with a sweet voice and an unfortunate love for tired songwriting cliches - she was out of her depth in the high-flying company sharing the final program with her. The audience gave the local performer a warm welcome, however.

Clary Croft ended the first half on a personal high. Evidently inspired by the Ancestry in Song project in which he had participated, a project designed to unearth whole new repertoires in the biggest of Nova Scotia's founding cultures, from the Helen Creighton folksong collection, Croft gave a lively, inspired performance, opening his set with a song of murder and violence and passionate love on the banks of the Bonny Dundee.

After the intermission, Tom Leighton and Mark Haines blazed their way to glory, working the crowd up with their extremely polished set. They are both multi-instrumentalists. Leighton, amazingly, plays as many as three at the same time, adroitly manipulating his DX7 synthesizer to produce sounds he and Haines lack fingers enough to play themselves, such as bass lines and percussion embellishments. Their act seamlessly integrated synthesized and acoustic sounds. Leighton brought down the house with a solo bodhran break. Haines, who sang most of the solos, also plays a mean fiddle. Together, the two musicians played a red-hot and glowing version of the Orange Blossom Special, driving the crowd insane with pleasure.

Lennie Gallant finished things off with his new band playing old and new pieces. With Chris Church powerfully driving the violin lines, Lennie himself chugging out the rhythm guitar parts and singing the tunes, bass and guitar elaborations from the Ilyas brothers, the band's contemporary sound has heightened Gallant's superb songwriting. They performed old favourites like Which Way Does The River Run and Peter's Dream, and new ones like Pieces of You and Gallant's moody version of Farewell To Nova Scotia, a song he found himself playing while watching TV news reports about the 1998 Swissair Flight 111 disaster off Peggys Cove. Gallant's knack of finding precise settings for his striking verbal gifts, and hyping it up with a touch of electronics and a sense of orchestral climax, reached a peak on Coal Black, his Westray memorial song which contains the devastating phrase, "Truth caved in to lies."

It was some kind of folk festival, folks.

Taste Celtic Brew at Cohn Thursday

August 16, 2000 - Halifax Herald

Howie's Celtic Brew, a hit with audiences across the province in June, begins an August tour with a performance Thursday at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Halifax.

The two-and-a-half hour show of comedy, music and dancing features Howie MacDonald and a cast of 10 of Cape Breton's top musicians, actors and dancers.

MacDonald is best known for his 10 years as fiddler for the Rankins, with whom he toured the world and performed on all their recordings.

He is joined by his sisters Marilyn and Cheryl, Al Bennett, Tracey Dares, Patrick Gillis, Matt Foulds, John Chiasson, and Helen and Dawn MacDonald.

Tickets are now on sale for the tour which stops at SAERC in Port Hawkesbury on Friday, Inverness Academy, Inverness, Saturday, St. F.X. Auditorium, Antigonish, Sunday and concludes at the Savoy Theatre, Glace Bay, Aug. 21 - 23.

Celtic Colours ticket sales boom on opening day

August 17, 2000 - Halifax Herald

More than $20,000 worth of tickets were sold on Monday, the first day tickets were available for the Celtic Colours International Festival in Cape Breton in October.

The nine-day festival, which runs from Oct. 6 to 14, from Mabou to Whycocomagh and Glace Bay to Ingonish, features more than 200 performers.

The festival office had calls from Scotland, Iceland, the Carolinas, New England, and around the province on Monday and sold 1,147 tickets for all 35 events for a total of $21,202 in revenue.

Two kick-off events are planned for Friday, Oct. 6.

The traditional Opening Gala at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay features Blazin' Fiddles, Iona Gaelic Singers, Damhsa Breacan Dancers, Ciaran & Fiona MacGillivray and Eleanor Shanley. A Celtic Cabaret at Sydney's Centre 200 has Kilt, the Barra MacNeils, Kimberley Fraser and Danu.

There are two new theme shows, Fiddlers Heaven at Judique Community Centre on Oct. 9 with Blazin' Fiddles, Buddy MacMaster, Joey Beaton, Brendan Mulvihill, Dougie MacPhee and Sean McGuire and the Oct. 11 Tune Circle at Port Hood School with Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert, Kinnon Beaton, Brendan Mulvihill, and Patricia Chafe.

Popular shows like Step Into the Past and the Cape Breton Fiddlers Concert are back.

Step Into The Past at the Fortress of Louisbourg Chapel on Oct. 9 features Stewart MacNeil, Lucy MacNeil, William Jackson, Alyth MacCormack and Bob MacLean. The Cape Breton Fiddlers concert on Oct. 12 at the Gaelic College in St. Ann's features the Cape Breton Fiddlers Association, Kyle MacNeil and Sheumas MacNeil.

Baddeck will host both closing parties. The world's biggest square-dance will be at the Baddeck Arena on Oct. 14 featuring JP Cormier, Buddy MacMaster, Paul MacNeil, Tracey Dares MacNeil, Filska, Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert, Jamie MacInnis, Maybelle Chisholm MacQueen, D‡imh, Sandy MacIntyre, and Hilda Chiasson Cormier and the Kitchen Ceilidh on Oct. 14 at the Baddeck Academy has the talents of Dougie MacLean, Howie MacDonald, Buddy MacDonald, Kyle MacNeil and Sheumas MacNeil.

Tickets are available by calling Select A Seat 902-564-6668 or toll free at 1-888-355-7744 or at Center 200, the Savoy box office, the UCCB Boardmore Playhouse box office and Glace Bay Pharmasave.

For information or a schedule of events and feature artists visit our web site at www.celtic-colours.com.

'Gypsy' Rankin plays at weekend fest

September 14, 2000 - Halifax Herald

Music lovers at the Deep Dale festival in Inverness last weekend got a special treat, an unannounced appearance by Mabou singer/songwriter Jimmy Rankin.

Rankin performed familiar songs he'd recorded with his brother and sisters - The Rankins - Roving Gypsy Boy and Go Lassie Go plus some new tunes slated for his highly anticipated solo album for the crowd of nearly 1,200 gathered in MacIsaac's Field.

Other performers on the bill included Dutch Mason, One I'd Trouser and The Aaron MacDonald Band. Unfortunately, due to weather and time constraints, top local bands Arlibido and Hu Noo weren't able to perform.

Rankin in concert with SNS on October 6

September 15, 2000 - Halifax Herald

Cape Breton's Raylene Rankin and Newfoundland's Bernard Felix and Norman Formanger join conductor Scott Macmillan and Symphony Nova Scotia for MTT's Maritime Pops Series opener at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, Friday, Oct. 6.

Rankin is one of the original members of the acclaimed EMI Music Canada recording group The Rankins.

The voice of the song Rise Again, Raylene left The Rankins a year before their retirement, in order to spend time raising her young son.

Tucked away on the tiny Port-au-Port peninsula in western Newfoundland is the French community of L'Anse-a-Canards, its inhabitants include long-time friends and musicians Bernard Felix and Norman Formanger.

Felix's accordion has been a natural extention of his body since he first picked it up at age nine.

Like others in his family, Formanger can make just about any instrument sing.

With his bass guitar harmonizing with Bernard's accordion, the two produce music full of joy, excitement and melancholy, spanning centuries and continents.

Subscriptions and single tickets ($34 and $25) are available by calling the Dalhousie Arts Centre Box Office at 494-3820.

Maritime Roots will also be performed at St. Ninian's Cathedral in Antigonish on Thursday, Oct. 5, 7 p.m. For more information, call (902) 863-5024.

Felix & Formanger, Rankin join symphony for Maritime Pops

October 5, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Stephen Pedersen / Arts Reporter

It's hard to listen to Newfoundland accordionist Bernard Felix without your jaw dropping. He's got to be one of the fastest players in the region. And technically pristine, too.

That's what the musicians and music-industry suits thought, too, when he came out from nowhere in 1992 to play at Bridget's Pub in St. John's during ECMA week.

"They came up after and said 'You guys are unreal' - maybe giving us more credit than we deserved," Felix says. "But it got us a gig at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto during the Junos. It was something called Lobsterpalooza. Then we did an interview with Peter Gzowski."

Soon Felix and his partner, bass guitarist Norman Formanger, were playing Francophone events in Nova Scotia as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, with a trip to Clifton, Ireland to help celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first transatlantic flight, and later on, 10 days with an Acadian trade show in France.

Friday night in the Cohn as Symphony Nova Scotia's Maritime Pops series kicks in, with Scott Macmillan at the helm, Felix and Formanger share the spotlight with Cape Breton songbird, Raylene Rankin.

Felix is an astonishing musician. At the age of 37, he doesn't yet read, or write, a note of music, but he's quick to pick up a tune from a record. He's been doing it since he was 10.

"I learned tunes from Jimmie Shand recordings," Felix says. "You'd hear him on the radio from Antigonish or New Carlisle - my dad and brother used to listen to him. When my brother Gerard went to Alberta in 1970 or '71, he bought some recordings and brought them back. That was when I started playing the accordion."

"Shand - a Scottish accordion player - was good to learn from - very good tempos, not a lot of ornaments, the notes well-played, well-spaced, not hard to follow. I slowed the records down to half speed and matched notes."

Attending regular kitchen parties at his home in Black Duck Brook (southwestern Newfoundland) gave him a love for the raw energy of the music. But basically he taught himself how to play.

When his sister's father-in-law left an accordion in the Felix house for six months, he began playing Red River Valley with one finger. By the end of the six months he could play 20 tunes.

"I did it by trial and error, but I would have been miles ahead with a teacher giving me tips."

Felix plays button accordion. With 33 buttons in three rows for the right hand, and 12 bass buttons for the left, the fingering of his Castiglione "Spanish Bohemian" accordion takes some determination and a lot of practice to master.

"The fingering for the scales is different depending on whether you are playing high or low," he says. "With only 12 bass keys, some chords, like G you can only get when you are pushing in, and others, like E Minor you can only play on the way out."

"A diatonic accordion is not a friendly instrument."

During his early years, every time he "graduated" to a bigger instrument, from one row to two rows, then from two to three, he had to relearn the fingering, he says.

Then, in May 1986, in Scarborough, Ont., while he was "moonlighting" from his job at Midas in a small muffler plant for about two weeks, a punch press machine caught his right hand and lopped off three fingers. Felix tells me this with an embarrassed smile as though he felt he shouldn't have been moonlighting.

"I got two fingers sewed back on with micro-vascular surgery, but we couldn't save the third," he says. He displays his right hand (the tune hand on the accordion). The long finger is a stump, the ring and little fingers bent and crooked.

"The accident happened in May. I was in hospital for two weeks. By June I was playing tunes with the cast on. By the end of July I had mastered 13 tunes. But it took two years of practicing a couple of hours a day to get all the traditional tunes back."

Felix says he uses glucosamine and chondritis to combat arthritis in those two fingers and noticeably loses flexibility in colder weather, and he has to play all the time to keep from stiffening up.

"One or two hours a day keeps me in shape," he says. "If I stop for a week, I really feel it, the dexterity starts to go, I lose the ability to play some of the tunes."

On Friday night's program Felix and Formanger will play tradional jigs and reels, Raylene Rankin will sing songs from the Helen Creighton collection (arranged for orchestra, with Macmillan accompanying on solo guitar for some of them) and a new George Antoniak song.

Rankin will also sing her anthemic classic, Rise Again.

The orchestra will play music by Alasdair MacLean, Macmillan's own Overtu . . . the Rock and arrangements of music by Paul Saulnier.

Felix will be taking time off after the show. He and Macmillan will play in Mabou at The Red Shoe pub Saturday night, and that will be Felix's last gig of the year.

He's going home to build a house from scratch, literally. He'll take a chain saw into the woods, cut the trees, mill it himself into lumber, and start framing the house up.

But you know he's going to take a break or two each day to keep those fabulous Felix fingers flexible.

Rankin's folksinging indescribable

October 7, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Stephen Pedersen / Arts Reporter

There's a good French word for Acadian accordionist Bernard Felix and his bass-playing partner Norman Formanger, and that would be, with appropriate Gallic accent: FORMIDABLE.

But, alas, no single word will do to describe Cape Breton's Raylene Rankin. To do verbal justice to her sweet, fresh, resonant and powerfully affecting voice, you need a paragraph, or a chapter, or better still, a poem.

The two (three) artists split a program at Symphony Nova Scotia's first of four Maritime Pops concerts last night at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium.

With Scott Macmillan doing his usual quadruple duty as conductor, arranger, guitar accompanist and emcee, it's little wonder the house sold out.

Rankin sang folksongs as no-one else can. She delivered those simple, sweet tunes from the Helen Creighton songbook with that total commitment that makes an audience willing to go to the wall for an artist.

If I Were A Blackbird, A Maid I Am in Love, When I Was In My Prime, Well Sold the Cow, An Innis Aigh - she sang them simply, clearly, and in that singular voice that gets better as she gets older. A richness coming in to the resonance now exquisitely balances the silvery ring in her top notes that makes crystal tremble.

Rankin moved us to tears with her singing of George Antoniak's Someone Like You, a love song to his wife following her illness and death. It is written like a jazz, swing standard, and Macmillan set it that way.

Rankin sang it with the sincerity and sensitive intensity of a born ballad singer. In America, differences in style aside, they would be comparing her to Streisand.

The Felix phenomenon from Black Duck Brook on Newfoundland's Acadian Port au Port Peninsula, just a left turn off the road going in to Stephenville, drew roars of appreciation from the crowd for the extraordinary energy and drive of his playing, even though, regrettably, the orchestra swamped the accordion in the loud passages.

He would emerge from these stormy passages like a rainbow of light and colour. For the Acadian tunes he tapped out the rhythm in traditional style, his feet moving almost as fast as his fingers.

The concert ended with a surprise: Cookie and Heather Rankin came on to help their big sister out on Rise Again. Sheer ecstasy. When Raylene took the famous high note a third higher at the end and then shivered down like a firework fountain with a bluesy coda, the crowd leapt to their feet and hammered their hands with tears in their eyes.

Then Felix and Formanger came in and played a virtuosic encore at a firebreathing tempo designed to tear the house down. And that's just about what it did.

Mir soars with super showcase of pop talent

November 6, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Stephen Cooke / Entertainment Reporter

It was a pops concert of a different sort at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on Saturday night, as the sound of strings and woodwinds were pressed into service for Halifax trio Mir and their special guests at the band's Supershow 2000.

Ambitious by anybody's standards, the concert saw the progressive pop threesome's standard lineup of guitarist/vocalist Asif Illyas, bassist Shehab Illyas and drummer Adam Dowling increased ninefold. You'd be hard pressed to cram the stage of the Marquee or Velvet Olive with a 17-piece orchestra, three percussionists, keyboardist Kim Dunn, guitarist Jamie Robinson and DJ Michel Deveau providing manic beats from behind his twin decks. There'd be no room for special guests Gordie Sampson, Mary Jane Lamond or Kim Stockwood.

Mir may have been in awe of the talent around them onstage, but at no point were they overwhelmed. Asif, who handles the bulk of the composing and arranging scores, avoided the kid-in-a-candy-store impulse, crafting subtle, tasteful charts for his and his guests' tunes instead of slathering them in syrup.

As on the band's new album Invisible Science, emotional ballads like Any Way Out and Wish You Well are designed with strings in mind, although in Supershow form they get some added dramatic flourishes that suit their sense of feeling.

Cape Breton wunderkind Sampson was the first guest out of the gate, with a pair of new tunes demonstrating his versatility and sense of humour. All I Know is a silky soul tune in the Marvin Gaye mould, with a string arrangement straight out of Motown circa 1970. Grandpa's Remedy is a witty country ditty about a love for the hard stuff that began with a 13-year-old's toothache, which gets replaced with a thirst that never quite goes away.

After a stirring version of Sting's They Dance Alone - with solo spots by percussionists Stefan Morin, Matt Foulds, tabla virtuoso Vineet Vyas and Dowling - Mir brought out Gaelic singer Lamond for a pair of tunes.

Sporting a snazzy new Louise Brooks bob, Lamond's powerful voice graced the Cohn with the tragic ballad Mo Mhaili Bheag Og and the song that first introduced her to most listeners, Sleepy Maggie. Fiddler Wendy MacIsaac, a staple of Lamond's band, shone on the latter tune, adding her own grace notes to a song that was originally a single for Creignish's Ashley MacIsaac.

Surprises for the evening included the quartet of bedazzling belly dancers that accompanied Asif's exotic instrumental Al-Bandar, which also provided a welcome opportunity for Vyas to display his hummingbird-swift tabla skills.

Newfoundland's Stockwood, for whom the word "irrepressible" seems to have been coined, made a change in the program by adding a new song to her set. The Vegasy empowerment anthem Angel was augmented by backup vocals from its co-writer Sampson and Lamond, sporting Day-Glo feather boas. A kicky little number, Angel seems destined to be a single someday.

The ensemble ended the show with a blissful Across the Universe, which is where Mir's music is bound to spread if it maintains the kind of chutzpah it takes to pull off a show like this one.

Spinazzola, Sampson to perform at Mount to help fund education project

November 11, 2000 - Halifax Herald

Gordie Sampson will perform for delegates and guests on Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. during a national conference entitled Children, Poverty and Education: Meeting the Challenge, Nov. 16 to 18 at Mount Saint Vincent University.

Joining Sampson are special guests Carlo Spinazzola, Papa Grand and the Halifax City Youth Dance Collective.

Tickets are $12 and can be obtained by calling 491-2859 or 491-2860. Proceeds will be used to establish an interagency foundation dedicated to support projects addressing poverty and education.

Mabou stages tribute to Rankin
Late, beloved musician remembered with night of music in new facility

November 13, 2000 - Halifax Herald

By Frank Campbell / News Editor

Mabou - Saturday truly was a day to remember in this tiny Cape Breton village.

Like those in many Canadian communities, residents gathered along with an ever-dwindling number of local war veterans to pay sombre tribute to Mabou's soldiers of yesteryear who died on overseas battlefields.

In the evening, the community gathered again, this time to remember another fallen comrade. Music lovers filled the new 491-seat Strathspey Place auditorium to overflowing for a concert in memory of Mabou-born musician John Morris Rankin, who died in an automobile accident 10 months ago.

The John Morris Rankin Stage was dedicated to the late leader of the Rankin Family band, and his family, friends and fans eagerly took their places onstage and in the comfortable theatre seats.

"It's a twister of memories and stuff," fiddler Howie MacDonald, who kicked off the entertaining and fast-paced concert, said of the John Morris tribute. "I see a lot of familiar people here.

"I've been thinking about it for the last week or so, and what comes back mostly is stories and really comical stuff. I probably could have gone on for quite a while telling stories about John Morris, without any music."

But MacDonald let fiddle tunes tell his story of 10 years on the road with John Morris and the Rankin Family, before yielding the stage to a lively step-dance group. Ashley MacIsaac followed with a rare piano solo, the bad-boy virtuoso exhibiting the best behaviour he always seems to set aside for Inverness County performances.

Many of the paying customers at the new Dalbrae Academy school mused aloud along with Strathspey Place manager Mary Janet MacDonald at such a magnificent auditorium sitting in their modest backyard.

"I'm amazed every time I walk in there," MacDonald said. "I have to pinch myself to realize that we are in Mabou."

Indeed, the crisp acoustics, plush theatre seating and overall grandeur of Strathspey Place might seem a bit out of place in this practical fishing and farming community. But beautiful music is always right at home in Mabou.

From legendary fiddler Buddy MacMaster to the rejuvenated strains of the Gaelic chorus and a host of piano players, step dancers, English singers and other talented fiddlers, John Morris's music and the music he loved flowed fluidly from the stage named in his honour.

"You don't have to go far to find amazing talent," said Margo Batherson, who grew up in Mabou and now lives in Port Hood. "You'll find it in Inverness County."

What you won't often find in Inverness County is a $43,000 grand piano like the one dominating the John Morris Rankin Stage. Before lilting into an Irish love song with John Morris's sister Raylene, co-emcee Dennis Ryan told those in the audience that their generosity in filling the $18 concert seats helped pay off the piano.

Overall, more than 100 musicians and dancers donated their talents and more than 500 pushed into the auditorium to honour a friend and gifted musician.

"We wanted a tribute to John Morris by our own people, our own musicians," said MacDonald, who took time out from managerial duties during the concert to don her accomplished step-dancing shoes.

"I'm sure it's part of the grieving process to do this for him."

John Morris's 13-year-old daughter Molly brought the crowd to its feet with her set of fiddle tunes that segued into the finale.

"It was unbelievable," MacDonald said. "It all just went so smoothly."

John Morris Rankin Remembered

November 14, 2000 - The Arts Report CBC Radio

MABOU, Cape Breton - John Morris Rankin was remembered over the weekend at a tribute concert held in his hometown of Mabou, Cape Breton.

Rankin died in a car accident last January. He was the eldest of the well known Celtic music group The Rankin Family.

Part of the weekend tribute was to name the stage of a new auditorium in Rankin's honour. Mary Janet MacDonald is the general manager of the auditorium. She says it's fitting that Rankin's name will continue to be associated with music:

"I believe everybody thinks it's so appropriate that it be named after him because of all that the Rankins did themselves, and of course just the talent that John Morris had himself being fiddle player or piano player or whatever. He could play anything. And just the gentleman that he was. I mean, everyone just loved him."

The community of Mabou has also raised more than $15,000 to cover the cost of a new grand piano for the stage.

Goodbyes for 2000
Canada Lost Many Greats In The Year 2000

December 28, 2000 - CHEK TV

It was a year of collective mourning as Canadians said a final goodbye to several greats in 2000.

The death of ex-prime minister Pierre Trudeau grabbed the most headlines but the country also mourned other one-of-a-kinds including hockey giant Maurice Rocket Richard and champion curler Sandra Schmirler.

Canadians also lost Bob Homme - a.k.a. TV's The Friendly Giant - following his lengthy battle with cancer. He was 81.

But the most prominent farewell in 2000 was reserved for another kind of giant, with Pierre Trudeau's funeral in October catching the imagination of the entire country.

"I can't think of any Canadian death that had anything like that kind of response," historian Jack Granatstein said, referring to Trudeau, who died of complications from prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease at the age of 80.

Admirers brought red roses to Trudeau's home and lined up in Ottawa and then Montreal to see his casket. World leaders, including Cuban President Fidel Castro and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, attended his funeral.

The moving ceremony at the Notre Dame Basilica came about four months after a huge outpouring of grief for Maurice Richard in the same ornate building in Old Montreal.

Richard, one of the most exciting players during the 1940s and 1950s and a symbol of French-Canadian pride, died after battling abdominal cancer. He was 78.

Known as The Rocket for his speed on the ice and the power he put behind a puck, he helped lead the storied Montreal Canadiens to eight Stanley Cup wins during an 18-year career.

His death prompted a public display of sadness not seen in Quebec since former premier Rene Levesque died in 1987.

Adoring fans filed into the Molson Centre to pay their respects to the right-winger as he lay in state in an open casket.

Thousands more crowded the sidewalks as his funeral cortege inched along Ste-Catherine Street. Many attended his funeral clad in his No. 9 Canadiens jersey.

Canadian politicians and hockey stars - including Prime Minister Jean Chretien, former Richard teammate Jean Beliveau and one time rival Gordie Howe - were also there.

It wasn't the first major loss for Canadian sports fans in 2000.

Sandra Schmirler, the three-time Canadian and world curling champion and Olympic gold medallist, died of cancer in March at the age of 36.

Her death deeply affected fellow Saskatchewan residents and fans across Canada.

Hundreds turned out for her funeral in Regina. Many more watched the nationwide broadcast at Schmirler's rink, the Caledonian Curling Club, and in their homes.

The funeral followed several days of mourning when government flags flew at half-staff and moments of silence were observed at junior hockey games.

Schmirler, a mother of two young girls, was post-humously inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

One of the most unusual deaths in the last 12 months was that of Canadian biathlete Mary Beth Miller, who died in July after being attacked by a bear as she jogged through a wooded trail near Quebec City.

Several major figures from the arts and entertainment scene died in 2000 as well.

John Morris Rankin, the eldest member of the brother-sister musical group the Rankins, was killed in a car accident in January.

He swerved to avoid a salt pile, sending his sports utility vehicle off a cliff in Whales Cove, N.S., and plunging 25 metres into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Rankin's son and two friends survived.

The Rankins, originally known as the Rankin Family, sold more than two million albums and are credited with popularizing Cape Breton Celtic music.

Al Purdy, described by some as the greatest Canadian poet ever, died April 23 of lung cancer. He was 81.

Purdy published 33 books of poetry. He won the Governor General's Literary Award in 1966 for The Cariboo Horses and in 1986 for Collected Poems, 1956-86. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1983.

Cartoonist Ben Wicks, who was best known for his syndicated single-panel piece The Outcasts, also died in 2000 at the age of 73.

A member of the Order of Canada, he died in Toronto in September of pancreatic cancer.

Wicks also worked as a journalist, TV personality and author. He was born in England and launched his career when he moved to Canada.

Mounties promise to release cause of Rankin crash

December 31, 2000 - Halifax Daily News

By Julie Clow - The Daily News

Almost a year after the death of Cape Breton musician John Morris Rankin, RCMP say they will finally explain what caused his Toyota 4-Runner to lose control, tumble down a steep embankment and plunge into the sea.

The 40-year-old fiddler, a former member of the Rankins singing group, was killed Jan.16 while driving his son Michael, 15, and two of his son's friends to an early morning hockey tournament.

Michael escaped the crash and flagged down a passing car to help rescue his friends, Matthew MacDonald and Timothy MacLellan, both 14.

The teenagers later described hitting what they thought was a large pile of salt on the road.

Little information has been released about the cause of the accident since last January, but Sgt. Wayne Noonan, provincial RCMP spokesman, said that is about to change.

"There's an answer coming very soon on the investigation," he said. "The investigation itself is complete as far as the analysis of the road and what was on the road at the time."

In fact, Noonan said he had expected the information to come out before Christmas, but now anticipates it early in the New Year.

The investigation took longer because of "unusual" circumstances, Noonan said, because police had to employ outside researchers and engineers to help analyze the scene.

"There were extraordinary circumstances, but not necessarily because it was John Morris Rankin," he said. "We would do this for anybody."

And while Noonan said the RCMP are discussing the case with Crown prosecutors, he wouldn't confirm that charges are pending.

"It was unusual because someone had said there was a major amount of salt on the road at the time," Noonan said.

"What speed would it take for a vehicle John Morris was driving to lose control and go off the road?

"Because of what was on the road at the time, because of the road conditions, the case is taking a little longer."

The Stationmaster's Long Since Gone...Not!

2000 - Coastal Community News Magazine

By Scott Milsom

The hills of Cape Breton are famous for their beauty. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists drive the Cabot Trail to experience the meeting of land and sea, to hike the coastal and mountain trails, or to simply escape the faster pace of city life.

Most of these tourists cross the Canso Causeway from the mainland and then take the Trans-Canada Highway to the Trail. Only a tiny fraction of the tourist swarm takes a right turn some 40-odd kilometres from Port Hastings and turns onto a much less-travelled road. This secondary road winds briefly among the rugged hills, bringing the visitor to the small village of Orangedale.

Today, many of the 300-400 people who live and work in the Orangedale area are employed at nearby gypsum quarries or commute to jobs at the big Stora pulpmill in Port Hawkesbury. However, it wasn't always so. Orangedale's first human visitors were the Mi'Kmaq, and there are still thriving First Nations' settlements within a few miles of the village.

The first Europeans to settle in the area came from the staunchly Presbyterian islands of the Outer Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland in the 1820s. Many came from the Isle of Mull, and in its early days, the community was known as Mull's Cove. (The name was later changed to reflect the fact that the village was then a bastion of the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organization that was a significant political force in the late 1800s.) Farming was the mainstay of the community before the coming of the railway in the latter part of the last century.

Early in the 1990s, the Rankin Family memorialized in song this small community and its railroading heritage with the hit Orangedale Whistle . Perhaps no two people better symbolize that heritage than brothers John Allan and Earl MacDonald . John Allan served as Orangedale's Stationmaster from 1960 to 1988, and then continued with VIA Rail until the Station was closed in 1990. Through most of the same period, Earl worked at the Station as a telegraph operator, baggage handler, and ticket seller. Their father, John Angus, was Stationmaster from 1941 to 1960, and the boys were raised in the second-floor flat above the Station, which served as the Stationmaster's family home. Today, Earl is a member of the Orangedale Station Association , an organization established to preserve and protect the old Station, built around the time the track was being laid from Port Hawkesbury to Sydney in the late 1880s.

When it began its work in the mid-1980s, the Association had a huge task before it. Over the previous decade and more, Canadian National, which owned both Station and railway, had allowed the building to deteriorate dramatically. "Upstairs," recalls John Allan, pointing upward toward his childhood home, "you could feel the wind just whipping from one end of the building to the other." Windows had been broken and were boarded up, the building cried out for fresh paint, and there was extensive structural damage. Canadian National was considering demolishing it.

It took a lot of work, but today Orangedale Station is fully restored to its past Victorian elegance. It houses a railway museum, with a model railway and displays of artifacts used in bygone railroading days. The Waiting Room and Station Agent's office are restored to the style of the 1940s, while the living quarters upstairs echo of the turn of the last century.

The basement of the Station houses a railroad archive containing artifacts and documents from Orangedale Station, from elsewhere in the Maritimes, and from across North America. Martin Boston, a former telegraph operator and current Association member, explains, "We keep the air in the archives both temperature- and humidity-controlled, to better preserve the records and artifacts. People have come here from far and wide to do historical research. It's one of the Association's mandates to preserve these things from our past." The Orangedale Station Association, a charitable organization, holds "Railway Days" events every summer and runs a gift shop in an adjacent railcar. An eyesore not so very long ago, Orangedale Station today is the main tourism attraction in the area, bringing thousands every year to re-live the railroading past.

John Allan and Earl MacDonald remember the days when Orangedale Station was abuzz with passengers and freight. "There used to be stock pens behind the station," John Allan recalls of his boyhood days, "and there were stock drives from Whycocomagh. People would bring cattle and other livestock from all around the area to be shipped out. As a youngster, I remember there'd be 30 or 40 cows and sheep there. We used to like to tease the bulls," he says with a wink, "just for pure devilment."

"Another year," Earl recalls, "A fellow from Alberta shipped a bunch of wild horses he'd caught out there to Orangedale. They were in the stock pens, and the fellow was trying to sell them to local farmers. I remember he had trouble selling the lot of them, and so he offered them to Dad, who was Stationmaster then. Dad had too much sense to take them!"

Canadian National, even in its heyday, wasn't widely known for being a model employer, and John Allan remembers one incident local people found particularly disheartening. "Back then," he says, "there was always a lot of coming and going, and lots of people worked here. One day when I was growing up, a train goes by and a cinder from the steam engine blows up on the roof and starts a fire. It might have been the end of the Station, but, luckily, this one worker notices it in time, and he scrambles up onto the roof and manages to put the fire out by himself. In the process, he burns his overalls up pretty badly. They weren't any good anymore. So Dad, being the Stationmaster, writes to Canadian National, explaining how this worker had saved the company's station and asking it to pay for a new set of overalls. Do you think they would? No!"

Despite the fact that Canadian National ceased operation in the 1980s and VIA followed suit in 1990, there is still a track that takes trains past Orangedale Station. The line from Truro to Sydney is now operated by the American-owned Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway, and its freight trains carry coal, steel, pulpwood, and other traffic. (On the day of my visit, a locomotive hoots its way slowly past a level crossing to pick up a railcar piled high with pulpwood on a siding within spitting distance of the Station.) And, this summer for the first time in several years, passenger traffic is being offered from Halifax to Sydney. (This weekly train is designed primarily for tourists, and its fares clearly reflect that fact.) When this summer service was first announced, members of the Station Association hoped an Orangedale stop might be included in the run. Instead, the train stops in Port Hawkesbury, where tourists are given a chance to stretch their legs.

The future of Orangedale Station today looks bright, but the community recently lost another historic building with a direct connection to the railway. Through the first half of this century, the Commercial Hotel had been well used by merchants, doctors, migrants, and other railway travellers. Although it closed around 1950 and had been a private dwelling since then, its most recent owners had done extensive restoration work. The building, along with a number of historic documents, was lost to fire in February of this year.

One of Orangedale's two stores is a Home Hardware operation owned by Murdock Olsen. "I bought this place 27 years ago," he recalls. "I needed a pair of work boots and I saw a notice that it was for sale. I asked if I could get a discount on the boots if I bought the store. He gave me twenty percent off the boots."

Murdock's store boasts a fair bit of woodworking equipment, and he buys his wood as much as possible from Nova Scotia mills. "Today, a lot of the bigger mills have computer equipment to do their cutting and the wood is cut by technicians," he explains. "But there's no replacement for that hard-earned traditional knowledge that is still to be found in many Nova Scotia mills."

This isn't to imply that Murdock is unwilling to use new technologies. He makes use of the internet to keep up to date on government and other tenders and contracts. "I leave it to the younger fellows to do that part of it," he remarks.

Orangedale's other retail institution is G. H. Smith and Sons, the local general store. It offers an amazing array of goods for sale, from milk to deli meats to furniture to tires. The panel of its delivery truck summarizes its wares in this manner: "Warehouse Outlet Appliances, Living Room, Bedroom Sets and Tires," and adds "If You Didn't Buy It From Us You Paid Too Much."

As she shows me around the store, Lena Smith explains to me that the building has housed a commercial operation since 1906. "My husband, Garnet, bought it in 1944 and ran it until he died in 1981. Then my son Bruce took it over." She takes me out back, where there's a tire-changing facility, leads me through areas piled high with new furniture, guides me past coolers where meat, pop, milk, and juice are on offer, then orients me past candy-bar stands and chip racks. I'd be lost without her guidance as she tells me, "We service local people, boaters who tie up nearby, and many of the Americans, Germans, and others who have bought up the old farmhouses and turned them into cottages."

In this age of Wal-Mart, the success of this little enterprise makes me smile, and I ask Bruce how he does it. "I have a good relationship with my suppliers," he tells me. "And it's better to add just a bit on top so people will come back. If you pile on the cost to consumers, you might get them once, but they won't come back, and they won't tell their friends."

The Smith store does a fair piece of its trade with area Mi'Kmaq living on nearby reserves. "We supply a lot of them with their beds, other furniture, and appliances. They don't pay the HST, so I don't charge them, though I have to carry it on my books for four months until the government pays me back. I grew up with the Mi'Kmaq around here, and if someone gets behind, we'll carry them through the hard times."

I ask Bruce whether he thinks that, one day, one of his three children might be running the operation. "I remember when I was a boy, and I'd drive by and see my Dad working late, and I'd say to myself, 'That's not for me!' But look at me � here I am. I have one boy of thirteen, but I couldn't ever try to put any pressure him. So, who knows?"

For a small place, there's a lot happening in Orangedale. Aside from railroading, a unique general store, and a hardware store, the village houses two churches and also boasts its own community water system that supplies just over 55 customers. Down the road a bit in one direction is Camp Aite Breagh, a summer camp for children and adults run by the YMCA for the provincial Department of Community Services. Down the road in the other direction is L'Arche, an ecumenical Catholic charity that does much good work for mentally challenged adults.

A few years back, the people of Orangedale proved they could save their Station. Today, many in the community are actively involved in other efforts involving educational, environmental, and other community issues. Despite its apparent serenity, it's a busy place. In Orangedale Whistle , The Rankins sang:

The Stationmaster's long since gone
Faded off into the sun
The whistle shrill still lingers on
In the hearts of everyone
Every day from dusk till dawn.

In spite of the first two lines of that verse, the heels of John Allan and brother Earl MacDonald still often echo against the walls inside Orangedale Station. And, though the train whistle may not blow from dusk till dawn, its sound is still known to echo off the wooded hills around this little community that is both close-knit and open, serene and bustling.

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Judique Flyer steams ahead Cape Breton's master fiddler Buddy MacMaster rolls along with new release

Favourite folk gather in Lunenburg Festival kicks off tonight with new, familiar faces on roster

A Wonderful Tribute Dozens of Rankins expected to attend John Morris Concert

Tears, melodies flow for Rankin Late Musician honoured at St. F.X.

Gallant wraps up 15th Folk Festival, Twice as many all-event passes sold this year

Mabou stages tribute to Rankin Late, beloved musician remembered with night of music in new facility

Goodbyes for 2000 Canada Lost Many Greats In The Year 2000

Judique Flyer steams ahead
Cape Breton's master fiddler Buddy MacMaster rolls along with new release

Favourite folk gather in Lunenburg
Festival kicks off tonight with new, familiar faces on roster

A Wonderful Tribute
Dozens of Rankins expected to attend John Morris Concert

Tears, melodies flow for Rankin
Late Musician honoured at St. F.X.

Mabou stages tribute to Rankin
Late, beloved musician remembered with night of music in new facility

Goodbyes for 2000
Canada Lost Many Greats In The Year 2000