Ranky Tanky facts for kids

Ranky Tanky is an American musical ensemble based in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. It specializes in jazz-influenced arrangements of traditional Gullah music, a culture that originated among descendants of enslaved Africans in the Lowcountry region of the US Southeast. Apart from lead vocalist Quiana Parler, four of the group's members, Quentin Baxter, Kevin Hamilton, Clay Ross, and Charlton Singleton, previously played together in the Charleston jazz quartet The Gradual Lean in the late 1990s.

Their debut album, Ranky Tanky, was released in October 2017. By the week of February 10, 2018, it was listed number one in the Billboard jazz charts. For their album Good Time, the band won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Music Album. They were also nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category, for Live at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

History

Baxter, Hamilton, Ross, and Singleton met while studying music at the College of Charleston in the 1990s, where they formed a jazz quartet called Gradual Lean. After splitting up to pursue individual careers for the following two decades, an idea came from Ross to reform the group, this time as an exploration of Gullah music, a cultural tradition from which Baxter, Hamilton, and Singleton have roots. For this project, vocalist and fellow Charlestonian Quiana Parler was brought on board. While Ross and Parler are not themselves from a Gullah community, all the band members grew up in South Carolina.

Prior to forming Ranky Tanky, Ross was active in the band Matuto, a world music group which combined Brazilian Forró music with modern jazz elements. The other band members' careers have been similarly varied: Parler was a contestant on season two of American Idol, while Singleton, who also attended Berklee College of Music, is currently the musical and artistic director of the Charleston Jazz Orchestra. Baxter is currently touring with jazz artists René Marie and Freddy Cole, and is Professor of Jazz Percussion at the College of Charleston. In 2012, Hamilton was a Collaborating Artist in the US State Department's OneBeat musical exchange program.

The name "Ranky Tanky" comes from a Gullah expression roughly translated as 'get funky.' The overall goal of the group was to create a contemporary interpretation of the Gullah musical vocabulary to share with the world, while remaining true to the pared-down, working-class attitude of the songs.

Ranky Tanky (2017)

Ranky Tanky's debut studio album featured 13 tracks, all of which are arrangements of Gullah folk songs. Writing for NPR, Banning Eyre declared that "on the self-titled debut by the quintet Ranky Tanky, Gullah songs are lively, soulful honey to the ears...in a pop music milieu ever hungry for newness, this group proves that the right musicians can make the past new all over again."

Band members

• Quentin E. Baxter (drums) (2016-present)
• Kevin Hamilton (bass) (2016-present)
• Quiana Parler (lead vocals) (2016-present)
• Clay Ross (guitar, vocals) (2016-present)
• Charlton Singleton (trumpet, vocals) (2016-present)

Discography

• Ranky Tanky (2017)
• Good Time (2019)
• Recorded Live at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (2022)

Chart positions