Uprooted seems a fitting title for the latest musical offering from the Rankins -- formerly the Rankin Family -- which hit record stores this week.
In addition to updating and countrifying their neo-Celtic-pop sound with the help of Grammy Award-winning Nashville producer George Massenberg (James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt), the five-sibling group from Mabou, N.S., has also had a particularly difficult year.
The Rankins, made up of Jimmy, Heather, Cookie, Raylene and John Morris, lost their mother -- who also ran their fan club -- to cancer in December.
"She had cancer for the last 17 years. The last two were probably the most difficult for her, because it was just an ongoing suffering," says Heather, seated beside Jimmy, during an interview in Toronto this week. "The title, I thought, really was kind of representative of the last couple of years that we've had personally."
Adds Jimmy: "There's been a lot of stuff that's gone down. There's been some heavy thinking and some heavy drinking -- that'd be a good line for a song. But this album is not about death. The fact that our mother passed away mid-way through, it just happened."
Still, Jimmy wrote one new song called Weddings, Wakes & Funerals -- which contains drum loops and electric guitar -- while Heather wrote the somber Cold Winds, in which she sings: "For cold winds chill my bones, and tears fill my eyes, our final farewell beneath that bitter winter sky."
The Rankins, who have sold two million albums in Canada in the last six years, but have been unsuccessful in the U.S. so far, also dedicate Uprooted to both of their late parents. They include an old picture of them as a young couple in the liner notes.
For now, the Rankins are embarking on a 13-city western tour that starts next Tuesday in Vancouver and wraps up May 25 in Winnipeg. It's expected that a Toronto show -- hopefully at Massey Hall -- will happen either in the summer or fall.
But both Heather and Jimmy hope the contemporary nature of some of the material on Uprooted might help dispel the widespread notion of the Rankins as the ultimate "wholesome Canadian family."
"It's amazing how photographs and videos can channel your image," Heather says. "In many ways, we've been misrepresented because there is no such thing as the perfect family, there's no such thing as the Brady Bunch. I mean, we're like anybody else growing up with brothers and sisters."
"We just happen to play in the same band," Jimmy adds. "People tend to slot you, they put a tag on you, 'Oh, the Rankin Family, very wholesome, blah, blah, blah.' The reality of it is, we have our quirks and quarks like anybody. I think where it hurts is that people may shy away from the fact that it is perceived as being too wholesome, too clean. When, in reality, if you listen to the lyrics, it really isn't that perfect."
Jimmy also has to laugh at the similar image of the latest Canadian family Celtic act to come along in the form of Leahy, which is made up of nine brothers and sisters from Lakefield, Ont.
"I was watching an interview with them on TV, and they were getting all the same questions that we've been getting for the past 10 years, and I was like, 'Congratulations, we're passing the torch on.'"
