Monday Music - Kenny Rankin

One of my favorite records of all time is The Kenny Rankin Album. This recording was an important part of my personal soundtrack during the 70s. Rankin's way of blending folk and jazz sounds really resonated with me back in those days. I also just absolutely loved and admired (and still do) the Don Costa string arrangements. Those arrangements were a huge influence on the way I wrote for strings during my recording studio days.

Another special thing for me about Rankin is that my wife, Cheri, is the person who first introduced me to his music. It mystifies me that a farm girl in southwest Nebraska managed to hear about Kenny Rankin before I did. After all, I was living on the cutting edge of cultural awareness in highly sophisticated northeast Nebraska. We had WAY more than the two TV channels they had out there in the sticks.

Yesterday, I was putzing around on the internet for fun, just trying to see if I could find any old videos of musicians I used to listen to. Kenny Rankin came to mind, so I did a couple of searches on YouTube. I was surprised to learn that Kenny died back in 2009. In June of that year, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just three weeks before he died. He was 69 years old.

So... I broke the news to Cheri, but she already knew.

"That was a few years ago, wasn't it?" she said.

How does she hear all this stuff before I do?

Here is a live 2001 performance of a song from the Kenny Rankin Album (1976). Twenty-five years after recording it, he still sounded great.