Jimmy Rankin, the group's primary songwriter, has been actively involved with music and art for the past twenty years.  Jimmy began playing drums with the Rankin Family when he was twelve, and at fifteen, added lead vocals, guitar and piano to his repertoire.  Through his formative years, Jimmy maintained a strong interest in art which culminated in his decision to enroll in the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1984.

As a songwriter, Jimmy draws upon his art college training.  "The artistic process is much the same, whether it be in writing a song, interpreting a song as a singer, or painting a picture.  I tend to write about the human experience and rural themes and relate these in a form accessible and understandable to people in an artistic, yet real sense."

Major influences on Jimmy's style stem from a combination of contemporary song masters' works, the story telling tradition and music of Cape Breton, as well as literature and art, to a large extent, of the beatnik generation.

"It is important to experiment and be open to new ideas so as not to stagnate as an artist.  I think that innovation and creativity are quintessential elements to success as a musician and artist."  So far, Jimmy's songwriting philosophy seems to be working, with the single Fare Thee Well Love topping the charts at #1, an East Coast Music Award for "Song of the Year" for Orangedale Whistle, in addition to platinum status for all Rankin Family releases to date.

Where to Hear Jimmy Sing Lead:

Lonely Island
Orangedale Whistle
Mull River Shuffle
Let It Go

2011 Update (Forget About The World Biography)

It’s not that Jimmy Rankin puts his heart on his sleeve, but he’s sure not afraid to roll’em up and consider the state of love in the modern world. With his fourth solo CD, Forget About the World (to be released April 12, 2011, Song Dog Label), Jimmy Rankin serves up a decidedly jubilant songwriter record that celebrates love and life with a fervour. Rankin takes listeners on a musical journey with a dozen songs imbued with a strong sense of imagery that captures the essence of emotions, moments where things change – for the better, for the worse, forever.

“I knew I wanted to make a country record, but not a straight ahead country record,” he explains. “I wanted it to be something more, something quiet in places, something reflective – and maybe something that did feel from the heart. People have a hard time categorizing my music. I’ve had an eclectic upbringing – Hank Williams Sr, rock n’ roll, Celtic… And to me, country music is all those things.”

“My last record (2007’s Edge of Day) was very rootsy, and I wanted to keep that, but I also wanted to make it bigger… make it something people who were more country or mainstream would be drawn to as well. I want to share all these feelings, these realizations with people to make a connection based on something in their heart….’Cause I’ve been making records for 20 years now – and I’m still learning about the power of what records can do. The way they bring people together, give them hope, make them sing. To me, that’s one of the greatest gifts music can give.”

As the album’s first single, a mercurial pledge to fidelity, “Here in My Heart” is quickly climbing the country radio charts, it appears Rankin is making good on his desire. Working from a restrained acoustic opening, the track builds as he taps into the frustration that marks long term affairs of the heart. It is in the trenches that bonds become strong, and Jimmy Rankin bears witness to that in his vocal. Reinforcing that ardour and passion, there is a lead guitar part over the song’s second half that is at once molten and shining. Given the reflection of the song’s emotional core, it’s obvious that it’s not just any guitar player, indeed, it’s one of country’s brightest stars and players.” – Keith Urban.

Urban is a long-time fan and vocal supporter of Rankin. But their personal connection goes back to the 2002 CCMAs in Calgary and a late night hotel jam that has since become legendary. The two toured together in 2003. “When I arrived in Nashville last March, Keith was one of the first guys I bumped into. He’s a real standup guy and an amazing guitar player. As luck would have it, he agreed to guest on the track. He brought a lot of that great energy that comes from playing onstage every night. It’s a whole different kind of vibe, very live. I like to have that kind of punch on my records, because I think it hits people differently, and Keith’s playing adds a very cool dimension to the song.”

Indeed there is an immediacy to the songs on Forget About The World. Not only is there the tug of the world in “Walk That Way” (that’s a duet with rising alt-country songstress Serena Ryder), the sweeping hope in the uncertainty in “Waiting On A Sign,” and the little details of how one’s supposed to live life on the intimate “Maybe Nothing,” but there’s the raw ache of “The Hurtin’ Part,” giving one a sense of the complexity of a life truly lived.

“I wrote “Walk That Way” with a girl (Christina Martin) from Halifax… We’d been talking about the paths our lives had taken, and she was looking back on her days in Austin being married and going out on an adventure. I liked the idea of traveling, passing through towns alone or with that one other person for hours and hours at a time. It’s an adventure, but it’s more… And I’ve never recorded a duet with a girl like this. Given the story and who that woman is, I wanted someone with guts – and that was Serena, whom I’ve been a fan of since I first heard her.”
What draws artists like Urban and Ryder to Jimmy Rankin’s music? In part, they are drawn to his sheer skills as a songwriter and a performer – skills that, as both a member of the Rankin Family and a popular solo artist, Rankin has honed to a cutting edge. But Rankin doesn’t just wow audiences with his impressive catalogue of hits; he draws the crowd and his peers in with his unique charm and his ability as a lyricist to capture the everyday turmoil of living and loving—with candor and wide resonance.

Since Rankin has spent more time in Nashville, he’s connected with a growing circle of musical kin, refining his already impressive chops as a songwriter and drinking in the spirit of country music in a place where it is more potent than anywhere else.

That spirit is present in abundance on Forget About the World, and to help Rankin blend all those influences into a singer songwriter kind of country, producer Bill Bell was enlisted. Known for his work with Jason Mraz, Tom Cochrane and Justin Nozuka, the guitarist/mixer/producer set to work creating an album that highlighted the intimacy of Rankin’s vocals and the imagery in his songs.

Eschewing obvious formulas, the pair balanced shimmering full-on production with the more airy folk-tinged ballads that mark the second half of the CD. “He understands that I want my records to be an interesting listening experience, that I want to perform songs that really hit home for people… it means a lot to me that I get letters from people about how my music has been a soundtrack of sorts during big moments in their lives – birth, death, weddings, break ups…”

Recorded at Bell’s Soleil Studio, Orange Studio and Canterbury Music in Toronto in late 2010, Forget About The World boasts an impressive backup band: Gary Craig on drums and percussion, Gary Breit on piano and Hammond organ, guitarist Colin Cripps, bassist John Dymond, fiddler Craig Eastman, and Kenny Greer on pedal steel.

Bill and I went into it open…with a bunch of songs and a general idea. We work-shopped some of the songs, got proper demos – and in that the colours emerged. You have to trust the process of it. Sometimes it’s live with a drummer, bass player and maybe a piano, then we overdubbed layers. The acoustic stuff was often just me, Bill, and a couple of guitars – for better or worse.

With a deft hand and commitment to the moments he sings of, worse isn’t an option. Certainly there is the tentativeness of the man trying to get his woman to come back in “Louise” and the willingness to embrace being wrong in “What I Wouldn’t Give,” but perhaps the most haunting performance is the tale of “Colorado Dave.”

“That song’s been kicking around in my head for 20 years,” laughs the almost shy songwriter. “And it’s not the kind of thing that would ever be on the radio, but it’s a great story; something about it just stays with you. It’s based on a true story related to Rankin by friend and historian, Jim St. Clair. “It’s about a guy from my home town, the son of a farmer who got up one day and left, landed in Colorado, and ended up riding with Jesse James back in the 1800s. Eventually, he escaped from the gang no one was supposed to leave alive, took off in the middle of the night, and stole back home to his mother, who had set a place for him at the table every Sunday since the day he left.”

While the songs on Forget About The World run the gamut from country/pop to more stripped down singer songwriter offerings, it wasn’t a particular style, a particular form, or a particular emotion that informed his writing. “When I sit down and write, I just want to write a good song.”

And there are plenty of those on Forget About The World – songs that are universal enough to resonate with just about anyone who hears them, but delivered in a way that’s so personal they seem as if they were written for you alone. Rankin is adept at imbuing his songs with a certain sense of romantic reality and at putting complex emotions into words his audience can easily interpret through the lens of their own experiences and find reflected in their own lives and loves. “Whether it be a story, conversation or whatever” says the dark-haired guitarist, “it has to make me feel something. It needs to be real to me, whether it’s a slice of my life, something I’ve heard, or someone I’m writing with has experienced.”

Things that are real seems to be the litmus test for Jimmy Rankin, a journeyman star who believes in following his muse, digging a little deeper to consider what others miss and one who firmly believes in the power of songs. Forget About The World is the latest chapter in the evolution of someone Canada knows by heart – and who will continue to grow in the music.
 

2007 Update (Edge of Day Biography)

Like any painter worth his salt, Jimmy Rankin knows how to make a lasting impression.
 
Except that, as a man who has won four SOCAN-sponsored ECMA-and-Juno Songwriter Of The Year Awards for the chart-topping "Fare Thee Well Love," "You Feel The Same Way Too," "Followed Her Around" and "Midnight Angel," his canvas isn't restricted to an easel and a few tubes of paint.
 
It's framed by experience -- and depending on how the Cape Breton native channels his idea -- a masterstroke of an alt. country, adult-contemporary or rock-flavoured arrangement depicting his life, emotions and observations with resonating finesse.
 
Just hand him a guitar -- preferably an acoustic Gibson; give him a little think-time and watch Jimmy -- no, hear him -- weave some aural magic.
 
"To me, writing a song is almost like creating a painting," notes Jimmy, who offers 13 picture-perfect portraits of sonic splendour on his new album, Edge of Day.
 
"You build it and colour it until all of the images blend together as one complete portrait that tells some kind of story."
 
Whether it's the potent roots-scented shuffle of "Stranded", the guilt-tinged poignancy of the album's first single, "Slipping Away", the urgent fiddle-driven desperation of "Got To Leave Louisiana", the romantic resignation of "Hopeless", or the euphoric optimism of "When I Rise," the musical tales woven on Colin Linden-produced Edge of Day are borne from the days he's spent living, traveling and soaking in the planet since the release of 2003's Handmade.

"Over the past three years I've taken a lot of my inspiration from the world I see around me," says Jimmy, who recorded the album in Nashville at the Rendering Plant and at Pinhead Recorders in Toronto during a busy year that also included a World Vision trip to Nicaragua and a recording reunion of The Rankins.
 
"Some of my songs are autobiographical. While others, although written in the first person, are about a story or something I heard. I do a lot of touring, traveling and reading and I think my songs reflect that. I'm always on the lookout for a good story and definitely tune into other peoples' experience in the world."
 
And for the first time, Jimmy is also enlisting a generous portion of observation from outside his own perspective: half the songs on Edge of Day involve an impressive list of collaborators ranging from Gordie Sampson and Tom Wilson to Jon Randall and Craig Northey.
 
"Essentially I wanted to work with other people," Jimmy explains, noting that his first two albums, 2001's Song Dog and 2003's Handmade, were predominantly solitary songwriting efforts.
 
"I've done some co-writing in my career, but never to the extent that I have for this album.
 
It's nice to be able to bounce ideas around, pick someone else's brain and see what sticks. When you work with other writers, you learn tricks of the trade."
 
Edge of Day is a contrast from its predecessors in other ways as well.

"It's less harmony-driven," explains Jimmy. "There's mostly two-part on this record, which is just a different style for me. It's also a lot looser and a lot rougher than my other records."
 
The loss of some of that varnish can be attributed to producer Linden's approach of live studio takes; employing crackerjack musicians such as keyboardist Richard Bell, percussionist Sam Bacco and Willie Nelson harmonica player Mickey Raphael -- as well as the noted guitarist producer himself -- and anchoring them around two solid rhythm sections: Toronto drummer Gary Craig and John Prine bassist David Jacques, and Mississippi-based Buddy Miller stick-handler Bryan Owings and Bruce Springsteen bassist Garry Tallent.
 
"I like Colin's approach to recording," says Jimmy. "This album feels more comfortable and natural to me in the way that it's very much a live recording and band vibe. I've tried to capture that essence on the other records, but this one's the most organic."
 
Jimmy says playing with such a stellar group of musicians raised his own lofty standards of performance.
 
"I play an acoustic guitar and I kind of drive the band and set the tempo and the energy of the song," he explains. "Playing with great players just ups the performance ante and enhances everything sonically. I like the idea of collaborating with musicians and really letting them shine."
 
Most important, perhaps, within the pensively reflective strains of "501 Queen: the reassuring romanticism of", "Shot In The Dark," and the restless realization behind "Drifting Too Far From Shore," is the notion of just how far Jimmy has progressed as a songwriter.

While adult contemporary and country radio stations all over Canada have readily embraced such memorable hits as "Followed Her Around", "Butterfly", "California Dreamer" and "Morning Bound Train", the truth is that Jimmy Rankin didn't choose songwriting as an eventual career path -- it chose him.
 
"Initially I had no intention of becoming a guy making records," he laughs. "I finished art school and I thought that I would form some kind of small pick-up band and play little legions and fire halls to support my art habit.
 
"But as it turns out, it was the other way around."
 
Although he eventually became the songwriting lynchpin of The Rankin Family -- helping them win 15 ECMAs, six Juno Awards, three Canadian Country Music Awards and propelling sales of over two million albums through songs he placed on the albums The Rankin Family, Fare Thee Well Love, North Country, Endless Seasons and Uprooted -- Jimmy was a late bloomer.
 
"It wasn't until later on in my teens that I started playing guitar and writing songs," reveals Jimmy, who grew up in the village of Mabou, Cape Breton.
 
"It wasn't until I was 19 that I had a breakthrough. I was bumming around Europe and sporadically writing...but nothing effective enough for me to call a good song.
 
"After that, I enrolled at the Nova Scotia College Of Art and Design and ironically bought my first guitar at that time. Only then did I really focus on learning to write.
 
"It wasn't like I hung out with other writers: I was basically holed up in my bedroom working on songs."

Jimmy's songs made their debut in a 1988 musical production featuring the music of The Rankin Family, with his material reflecting Celtic and traditional roots influences.
 
"Back in the day when we were kids playing dances around Inverness County in Cape Breton, I was writing a lot of stuff inspired by traditional music because that's where we were at the time," notes Jimmy. "But I was also influenced by the pop music of the day."
 
When "Fare Thee Well Love" topped AC, pop and country formats in 1992 and won a Single Of The Year Juno, it was a watershed moment in Jimmy's career.
 
"That was a milestone to me because I was recognized as a writer," he notes.
 
"Since those days, I've branched out. As a solo artist, there really are no holds barred for me, although I've tried to give each record a distinctive, yet cohesive sound."
 
Edge of Day is cohesive by the sheer nature of the author's astute craftsmanship as someone who mulls incessantly over a song before committing it to public scrutiny.
 
"I don't like to put filler on records," admits. Jimmy, whose solo career has included tours with country hit-maker Keith Urban and folk legend John Prine.
 
"I'll leave it for awhile and then I'll come back to it. If it still catches me, I'll know it's right. Whether it's the melody or the feeling or the groove, it's got to be something that grabs you right off when you first hear it."

Nowhere is that more apparent than on the album's haunting first single, "Slipping Away." It's a melancholy number that personifies the chasm of distance between fading lovers, and the hopelessness that one feels in having no choice in destiny taking its fateful course.
 
Visually, the sentiment is made all that more poignant by the song's accompanying video, shot in a stark, industrial oil-refinery district of Edmonton by the world-renown David Hogan (Shania Twain, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews Band.)
 
"The video is very far removed from where the song was written," says Jimmy. "I wrote that up in a hotel room in an old mining town in Northern Ontario. It was as cold as hell that night and I was looking out the window and kids were playing hockey under the streetlights. It was a typical Canadian winter night."
 
However, he's thrilled about Hogan's interpretation of his "cinematic poetry" and the images he employed.
 
"I'm a visual thinker," say Jimmy. "And the video is almost introspective in its nature. I like the idea of going in another direction with it and having two perspectives on it - one from the lyrical and another from the visual."
 
Ultimately, leaving his music open to personal interpretation is how Jimmy Rankin prefers it.
 
"I'm not crazy talking about exactly what a song is about, because I personally like it when people draw their own conclusions as to what I'm singing about," he reveals.

"There are a lot of topics on this record. I think each song has a story to it, and I'd like people to listen to my record and enjoy each song as an entity in and of itself...to take a story from it and whatever they need."
 
No doubt his fans will also want to see him perform the album, which he'll do with a solo trek in the spring following the January-February coast-to-coast Rankins reunion tour.
 
Out Spring, 2007: Edge of Day -- a masterpiece of music that will speak to you, move you and touch you in unexpected and profound ways.

Above Biography Copyright Song Dog Music Co. Limited

2003 Update (Handmade Biography)

Having confirmed his position as a singer/songwriter of special note following the release of his debut solo CD, Song Dog, Jimmy Rankin returns with a set of songs on his sophomore outing, Handmade, that leaves no doubt as to the current mind set of the man who was in the vanguard of the roots music revival of the early '90s as he distinguished himself as vocalist, guitar player and principal songwriter for the chart-topping Canadian group, The Rankins.

Handmade bursts with the joy of making music that doesn't need life support from a studio full of electronic gadgetry. It's a record that primarily features acoustic instruments -- banjos, mandolins and dulcimers -- and a live, off-the-floor feel that recalls those magic moments, often outside the spotlight's glare, when musicians come together to make music for the sheer pleasure of it rather than commerce. As well, there's a restless spirit inherent in songs like Sweet Wheels, One Last Ride, Colorado, California Dreamer and Morning Bound Train, a song about insomnia written on a recent trip to Mexico. If story telling and wanderlust are the twin pillars of the troubadour tradition, then Jimmy Rankin is certainly a charter member. As the man said in his song, "I'm movin' on."

"I was speaking at my nephew's graduation recently and talking about the importance of travel for me," recalls Jimmy as he takes a page from the Ray Davies songbook and spends some time "lazing on a sunny afternoon in the summertime" in the backyard of the historic home he now shares with his wife and business partner Mia set just up the hill from the bustling Halifax harbour on the east coast of Canada. "I grew up in Cape Breton and it wasn't like we went on trips every summer or I was overly exposed to the outside world. I got out of Nova Scotia for the first time on my own when I was 19. I went to Europe for a year and I think that is when I started finding my voice as a songwriter. I'm the kind of writer that has to be there, see something, hear about it or experience it in order to put it into song form. When I travel, I keep all my senses wide open for inspiration."

Handmade represents a milestone in Jimmy Rankin's recording career in that many of the songs that were written for his previous CD, Song Dog, which earned him Single, Songwriter and Country Artist of the year honours at the 2002 East Coast Music Awards and the title of Best New Solo Artist -- Adult Contemporary at that same year's Canadian Radio Music Awards, date back to his days with The Rankins and the period after the group disbanded in 1999. The songs on Handmade, a number of which reunite him with co-writer Tim Thorney including the title track, are current.

"During the ten years I was with The Rankins, I was trying to capture in song the way of life that I had grown up with and the history there and the stories and the people and the traditions and all of that," he explains. "I figured in the South, people had written about things that maybe weren't known to other places in the world and it eventually popularized them. That was kind of my mission back then."

That mission was accomplished in spades in 1994 as The Rankins walked away with four Juno Awards in the categories of Entertainer, Group, Country Group and Single of the Year in the wake of the enormous success of the album and single Fare Thee Well Love. " As a songwriter, to get Single of the Year, that was kind of a highlight for me. It was like somebody saying, 'Man, you can write songs!'"

The song has since become somewhat of a standard. In fact, a recent television documentary series titled Impact: Songs That Changed the World, put the spotlight on Fare Thee Well Love as one of three Canadian songs worthy of a profile.

Notes Jimmy: "It was a breakthrough song for me and the band. It broke the band nationally and I think it made people aware of roots music, not only in Eastern Canada, but also across the country."

Though the songs on Handmade reflect a wider worldview, Cape Breton and his hometown of Mabou are never far from Jimmy's thoughts. "I come from a place where storytelling is very important and a part of the fabric of life and I think that that has carried over into my songs.

"I find going home to Cape Breton very inspirational. Driving into the driveway there I'm always hit with some idea or sentiment that sparks something off. It's happened to me numerous times. Running Home from the current record came out of that. It's about going back home after being out there and how great it is to get back to reality and back to your roots."

Above Biography Copyright Song Dog Music Co. Limited

2003 Update 

After a decade in the business, well over two million albums sold and armloads of industry awards (including 5 Junos), The Rankins, Canada's most decorated musical family, called it a career in 1999. Erasing radio-format boundaries and opening the door to a host of East Coast acts, The Rankins excelled both at traditional Gaelic music and Celtic-influenced pop such as their breakthrough hit, "Fare Thee Well Love." 

Jimmy Rankin was the principal songwriter as well as a lead vocalist and guitarist for The Rankins. Thus, it was only natural that when The Rankins disbanded, Jimmy embark upon a career as a solo artist. In 2001, a year after his brother and band-mate, John Morris died in a tragic automobile accident, Jimmy released his first solo record, Song Dog. Despite the heavy heart it was recorded with, Song Dog is a remarkably upbeat blend of folk-rock and pop reminiscent of the Jayhawks and fellow Canadians, Blue Rodeo. Rankin was welcomed with rave reviews as a solo artist and won numerous accolades and nominations including a Canadian Radio Music Award for Best New Solo Artist - Adult Contemporary, numerous ECMAs and two Juno nominations.

In September 2003, Jimmy released Handmade. Recorded in Toronto and co-produced by Rankin and Tim Thorney (Song Dog) the album is built around a rustic, roots-rock vibe and lyrical themes of motion and travel. Says Jimmy, "In mid-winter 2002, I hung out with Thorney… we listened to a lot of different styles of music and talked about the direction I wanted to take… There was a lot of chaos in the world. It was snowing and war was pending in the Middle East…AM talk-radio droned constantly in the background. This set the tone for a batch of tunes we wrote together, three of which appear on this record. I would say that the song "Handmade" is the one that most reflects our mood at the time.

The album was recorded at Tattoo Music in Toronto. Handmade bursts with the joy of making music that doesn't need life support from a studio full of electronic gadgetry. It's a record that primarily features acoustic instruments - banjos, mandolin and dulcimers - and a live, off-the-floor feel that recalls those magic moments, often outside the spotlight's glare, when musicians come together to make real music. As well there's a restless spirit inherent in songs like "Sweet Wheels," "One Last Ride" and "Morning Bound Train", charging each with a sense of urgency and momentum. The soaring ballad, "Butterfly" is slated to be the next single and has been re-mixed for AC radio.

Jimmy Rankin's career thus far, from his earliest beginnings in The Rankin Family to his current solo success, is the standard by which roots-rock's crossover appeal is judged. Handmade ably showcases that Rankin gift of pop-friendly Celtic-roots songcraft. If story telling and wanderlust are the twin pillars of the troubadour tradition, then Jimmy Rankin is certainly a charter member. As the man said in his song, "I'm movin' on."

Jimmy's debut solo CD "Song Dog" will be released in Canada by EMI Music on July 17, 2001.

For more info, visit www.jimmyrankin.com

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