Rock My World Canada, chapter 88: Rawlins Cross

[Mike Carr is determined to create a catalogue/reference work featuring all kinds of Canadian rock and alternative releases from the past few decades. Check out his a massive volume on Canadian music history entitled Canadian Alternative & Indie Reference and Collector’s Guide. It’s an incredible discography of hundreds of bands. – AC]

Rawlins Cross, one of Canada’s most accomplished and beloved Celtic bands, was formed in St. John’s in the late 1980s by songwriting brothers Dave Panting (guitar and mandolin) and Geoff Panting (keyboards and accordion) and Ian McKinnon (highland pipes and tin whistle).

Since then, Rawlins Cross has been at the vanguard of the fusion of Celtic traditional music with the rhythms of rock, pop and worldbeat music. The band burst onto the East Coast recording scene in late ’89 with its first indie recording, A Turn of the Wheel and a video for the single Colleen. Just weeks after its release, Colleen scored a top ten radio slot on Toronto’s influential CFNY station and Rawlins Cross was on its way.

Already one of the top concert draws in the region, and with a growing fanbase across Canada and in Europe, Rawlins Cross released Living River in 1995, which garnered two Juno Award nominations.

Find out more about this artist and hundreds of other Canadian artists in the softcover edition of Canadian Alternative & Indie Reference and Collector’s Guide. Get your copy here. Follow Mike on Facebook and Twitter.