Monday, December 25, 2017

I'd Love to Turn You On #195 - Kenny Rankin - Silver Morning


Here’s a gift for the holiday - something rare, warm and beautiful. You may have never heard of Kenny Rankin - he was never a top ten artist, he garnered little airplay, and he barely penetrated public consciousness. However, if you were among those lucky enough to have discovered this artist of uncommon gifts during his heyday in the 1970’s, (although his career stretched from the mid-60’s to ’07) you were given a mighty respite from tumultuous times. Kenny Rankin’s magic was very simple for me. His music evokes a state of calm. His voice is a magnificent instrument of sooth and healing, and his music is inviting and approachable. My favorite album by Kenny is 1974’s wondrous Silver Morning, because it so beautifully balances his own compositions with world class covers and exudes the gauzy comfort of happier times. While clearly of another time, there is paradoxically, a timeless quality about this album. It always seems to make emotional sense.

Kenny Rankin’s greatest gift was his angelic voice. One of the great interpreters of song in the rock era, his versions of Beatles songs endeared him greatly to the authors, with his version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” being played at George Harrison’s memorial service. On Silver Morning he takes on both “Blackbird” and “Penny Lane” to amazing effect, turning them into patented jazzy vocal swingers. He reimagines complex arrangements into equally complex different arrangements which replace many instruments with the power of his own voice. But Kenny Rankin did not skimp on musical muscle. The performances are lush and full featuring the cream of 70’s jazz and rock session cats. Rankin has a way of getting inside the most iconic songs’ melodic core and adding his own cool sensibility to it, giving it life outside of its classic original. Take his amazing version of Curtis Mayfield’s undeniable “People Get Ready.” Rankin takes the song to a place of folk-soul bliss, mellower than Mayfield’s, yet with a new sheen of beauty driven by John Sebastian’s beautiful harmonica playing and Rankin’s own nylon-string guitar strumming. Also covered on this album are Baden Powell’s lovely “Berimbau,” Gordon Lightfoot’s “Pussywillows Cattails” and a sublime version of Frankie Lymon’s “Why Do Fools Fall In Love?”

However, my greatest affection is for the Rankin originals on this album. The title track “Silver Morning” is an orchestral ballad that never fails to lift my spirits. It is the musical equivalent of a warm patch of sunlight on a Persian rug during the dead of winter. It is a welcome and comforting presence in the room. Equally beautiful is “Killed A Cat,” a downbeat memoir of his youth growing up in New York City. And no song on this album has thrilled me more over the years than the exhiliratng “In The Name Of Love.” The first time I heard this song, shortly after getting my first acoustic guitar, I just about lost my mind. This guy was doing everything I could have aspired to accomplish in the cultural open-wound that was the early 1970’s; he played like a demon (Dylan had used him on some mid-60’s sessions), he had a voice that was like mercury coated with honey: controlled yet liquid, and his arranging sensibilities were both honoring the past and totally forward-looking. This song was really something, and it still feels that way when I listen to it 43 years later. Nothing else is quite like this, and very few albums have had such a consistently tranquil effect on my psyche as Silver Morning has. Need a remedy for today’s political nightmare? Take Kenny Rankin and call me in the morning.

-         Paul Epstein

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