WHEN Mary Chapin Carpenter makes promises, she delivers.

She suggested last week that the only thing she was interested in while out on tour was performing at a level that would make the audience feel they'd been through something special.

Consider it mission accomplished.

Last night the five-time Grammy winner brought her soulful brand of contemporary folk and country to the Ottawa Civic Centre Theatre, in tandem with the multi-Juno winning Rankin Family.

And if nothing else, the 4,000 or so in attendance can say they got their money's worth.

What Mary Chapin does in concert is exactly what we always hope an artist will do and that's simply to take the music we love and show us you really care about those songs.

From start to finish the lady bubbled with enthusiasm, delivering a super-charged 70-minute string of hits that we could have only imagined would be this good live.

She brought a desperate tenderness to Outside Looking In, a rousing happiness to I Want To Be Your Girlfriend, a happy-go-lucky warmth to Passionate Kisses, a Philly soul shuffle to Let Me Into Your Heart and a biting irony to the encore number He Thinks He'd Keep Her.

The marvellous thing about a live event is that very often an artist will take one of their classics and really turn the tune on its ear, giving it a new personality that builds on the familiar. Mary Chapin did just that with her monster Shut Up And Kiss Me.

As offered last night, the song has now taken on a wonderful heavy-bottomed bluesy feel featuring a snarly slide guitar break.

Shut Up And Kiss Me suddenly had this warm New Orleansy undercurrent that made it so much more mischievous than the original.

Then there was the riveting version of I Feel Lucky, peppered with a boogie backbeat and some raunchy guitar that uprooted the cutesy feel of the single and replaced it with a more menacing feel. She wound up belting it out in a Billie Holiday blues style. The whole hour wound up in dramatic fashion with Mary Chapin's dog joining the entourage and taking a bow with the band -- clever.

The two things you can always depend on with the Rankin Family are consistency and quality.

With no new CD to focus on, this year's tour seems to be just for the fun of it, but we'll take it all the same.

This was also probably the biggest venues to host the Rankins in Ottawa but they just upped their energy level and actually did an amazing job at filling the place with a bounty of sound.

What's constantly amazing about this Cape Breton group is the way they move from style to style, instrument to instrument, voice to voice in such a seamless fashion.

Jimmy, Cookie, Raylene and Heather take their individual turns at lead vocals, and though they may sound similar there's a different timbre with each, and so the group basically runs with four lead singers and makes the most of the opportunity.

All the while, brother John Morris shines on piano and fiddle.

The other Rankin trademark is variety. They move from the Lightfoot-tinged folk rock of North Country to the haunting traditional ballad sounds of pieces like If I Were A Blackbird (sung by Raylene), to Heather's gentle Gaelic offering or Jimmy's rollicking Roving Gypsy Boy, or collectively bring the crowd to a fever pitch with You Feel The Same Way Too, there's no stopping this eclectic bunch.

And, as always, every so often the band breaks into those amazing medleys of jigs and reels, with a double fiddle attack and the sight of Heather and Cookie stepdancing at the front of the stage. These instrumental moments always get the fiddle-crazy Ottawa Valley crowds to their feet.

As ever the Rankins surround themselves with a great bunch of musicians but one constant standout was percussionist Scott Ferguson, who really goes above and beyond the call of duty.

Despite Jimmy's broken leg and the unbelievable heat inside, the Rankin Family and their fans had one heck of a hoedown.

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5