Tuesday, June 9, 2009

In Memoriam

Kenny Rankin, song stylist.

I make particular note of this because the name evokes late teenage evenings by the radio listening to baritone/bass voices reciting poetry and announcing a bottomless variety of music.  In those days Kenny Rankin got a fair bit of airplay.  Several years ago, because the phrase "cotton candy parade" had unaccountably gotten stuck in my brain, I Googled his name and discovered that he was still recording and still playing small clubs in the Village.  

I promptly forgot.

2 comments:

Daisy Deadhead said...

For awhile, Rankin was a legendary junkie. Not that it matters a lot, but notice in hip-hop or rock obits, the junkiedom usually rates a whole paragraph, while in Rankin's it is not mentioned at all.

I always notice things like that.

D. said...

Ah.

Never knew that.

Now that I think of it, I have Rankin mentally filed as a folkie, and except for Dylan (marijuana, introduced Beatles to), I don't recall folkies' drug habits being mentioned (although it has been a long time), even though many folk and jazz artists went off the radar in the mid-late '70s, and what they were taking would probably not interest the tabloids.

Huh.

And it would have been a redemption story, too.

I'll be on the lookout for this now. Thanks.