Nokomis, Saskatchewan country blues performer Jolene Higgins, better known by many perhaps by her stage name of “Little Miss Higgins,” will be in Thompson Oct. 22 for a 7:30 p.m. show, marking the second Home Routes concert of season six here – and the second consecutive country blues artist to perform, as this year’s lineup kicked off Sept. 23 with Deep Cove, Nova Scotia area country bluesman Morgan Davis.
Home Routes house concerts are at Tim and Jean Cameron’s place at 206 Campbell Dr. Tickets are $20 at the door and the coffee will be on, says Tim Cameron, now in his third season of organizing Thompson stops on the tour. For more information give Tim or Jean a call at 204-677-3574 or send them an e-mail at: cameron8@mymts.net
All the money goes to the performers, some of whom would likely never pass through Thompson without the concert series. Performers typically do 11 shows in 14 days at their stops along Home Routes Borealis Trail circuit in Northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which Thompson is part of . Other stops on the Borealis Trail beside Thompson include Flin Flon, The Pas and Minitonas and Swan River Valley in Manitoba and in Saskatchewan, Buena Vista, Annaheim, Prince Albert, Napatak, Melfort and Greenwater Lake Provincial Park. Other circuits on Home Routes include the Yukon Trail; Salmon-Berry in British Columbia; Cherry Bomb and Blue Moon in British Columbia and Alberta; Chautauqua Trail in Saskatchewan and Alberta; CCN SK in Saskatchewan; Central Plains in Saskatchewan and Manitoba; Jeanne Bernardin in Manitoba, Agassiz in Manitoba and Ontario; Estelle-Klein in Ontario and Québec and the Maritimes in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Brooks, Alberta-born Higgins was raised in Independence, Kansas, named in commemoration of the July 4, 1776 United States Declaration of Independence. For her newest release, Bison Ranch Recording Sessions, Higgins teamed up with a quintet of musicians she calls the “Winnipeg Five” – Jimmie James McKee on trumpet, Eric Lemoine on banjo and pedal steel, Blake Thomson on guitar, Patrick Alexandre Leclerc on upright bass and Evan Friesen on drums. All five of them sing harmonies.
Also coming to Thompson 2½ weeks after Higgins is Mabou, Nova Scotia country and folk legend Jimmy Rankin, who first came to public acclaim as a member of the famed Celtic Rankin Family, but is also well-established over the last 15 years as a solo artist. While The Rankin Family stopped performing a group after a decade in September 1999, smaller versions still reunite from time-to-time and these days it is made up of Jimmy and his sisters, Cookie and Heather Rankin. Three members of The Rankin Family have died over the last decade and half, including Raylene, who died of breast cancer in 2012; Geraldine, who died in 2007, the result of a brain aneurysm, and John Morris Rankin, killed in a car accident on Cape Breton Island in 2000 when the truck he was driving to a hockey game plunged off a cliff into the Gulf of St. Lawrence after he swerved to avoid a pile of salt on the highway.
Jimmy Rankin, now 50, will be performing an acoustic show in Thompson Nov. 8 at the Letkemann Theatre at R.D. Parker Collegiate. Show time is 8 p.m. and tickets are $25. The City of Thompson, which used to have a four or five-concert series every fall and winter, is bringing Rankin in. Thompson is the last stop on Rankin’s “Back Road” tour in support of his latest album, Back Road Paradise, although he is also set to perform as a guest, along with Ian Sherwood, at Nova Scotia singer-songwriter Rachel MacLean’s “Christmas With Friends” show Dec. 7 at University Hall at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Rankin’s “Back Road” tour kicks off at Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium in Brandon Oct. 19.
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