kenny rankin
Kenny Rankin was singer-songwriter who worked with artists such as Bob Dylan. [1]
A pop and standards singer during his long career, Kenny Rankin debuted in 1967 with his first album, Mind Dusters, which featured the soft rock hit “Peaceful.” [2]
In a remarkable recording career that spans three and a half decades, Kenny Rankin has established an impressive set of creative credentials, as an insightful songwriter, a distinctive guitarist and, above all, a world-class singer possessing an uncanny ability to cut straight to a song’s emotional heart. [3]
Kenny Rankin (Los Angeles, February 10, 1940 - June 7, 2009) was an American pop and jazz singer and songwriter originally from the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, New York. [4]
Featuring 20 tracks, Peaceful: The Best of Kenny Rankin is a comprehensive overview of the singer/songwriter’s career. [5]
Born and raised in New York City, Kenny Rankin was a singer/songwriter whose music combined jazz, folk and pop influences. [6]
Three years later, he signed with Private Music and released Professional Dreamer, an album that found him concentrating on standards. [2]
A few years later, he signed with Columbia Records, and found himself playing guitar on Bob Dylan’s landmark 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. [3]
Among the most successful were 1976’s “The Kenny Rankin Album,” which reached No. 99 on the “Billboard” album charts, and 1980’s “After the Roses,” which charted at No. 171. [6]
Georgie Fame also had a hit with this song in 1969, his only songwriting credit to hit the British charts reaching number sixteen and spending 9 weeks on the chart. [...] Early in his career he worked as a singer-songwriter, and developed a considerable following during the 70s with a steady flow of albums, three of which broke into the Top 100 of the Billboard Album Chart. [4]
For example, his “In the Name of Love” inspired a memorable version by Peggy Lee, while his “Haven’t We Met” has been cut by a number of jazz and pop artists including Carmen McRae and Mel Torme. [...] I never change lyrics, because when I select a song it’s usually because of how the lyric impacts me. [3]
In a review of a 2000 Rankin performance at a San Fernando Valley jazz club, critic Don Heckman wrote in The Times: “Rankin has been — for a decade or more — a singer whose unusual improvisational skills and innate capacity to deliver a melody with a strong sense of swing stamp him as a consistently appealing jazz artist.” [...] As a singer with a velveteen tenor voice, he had highly successful covers of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and “Penny Lane” in the mid-1970s and in 1976 recorded an LP of standards, “The Kenny Rankin Album,” with a large orchestra conducted by Don Costa. [7]
Sources:
[1] Kenny Rankin - Zimbio
[2] Kenny Rankin: Information from Answers.com
[3] Kenny Rankin Biography
[4] Wikipedia: Kenny Rankin
[5] Peaceful: The Best of Kenny Rankin 1996: Album review and …
[6] Kenny Rankin - Last.fm
[7] Kenny Rankin dies at 69; singer-songwriter’s long career …