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Trinity Revisited [CD/DVD]  >>

On November 27, 1987 the Cowboy Junkies set up a single microphone inside The Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, Ontario and in one day recorded what would become The Trinity Session, a landmark album of originals and covers grounded in traditional country, blues, and folk, with a clear nod to The Velvet Underground. The album would go on to sell millions of copies worldwide and establish the Cowboy Junkies as one of the most influential bands of the alternative era. Now, 20 years later, the Cowboy Junkies have returned to The Church of the Holy Trinity to celebrate their most famous work with the help of special guests Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant, Vic Chesnutt, and Jeff Bird. This time around, the band brought some extra mics and a camera crew along, and the result is a very special 2-disc set (1 CD & 1 DVD), filmed in high-definition video and mixed in stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound which captures the essence of the Cowboy Junkies and their landmark album as never before. A bonus documentary about the making of the album is also included.

DVD tracks include:
1. Mining for Gold 2. Misguided Angel 3. Blue Moon Revisited 4. I Don't Get It 5. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry 6. To Love Is to Bury 7. 200 More Miles 8. Dreaming My Dreams 9. Working on a Building 10. Sweet Jane 11. Postcard Blues 12. Walking After Midnight

The Trinity Session  >>

On their sophomore effort, Canada's Cowboy Junkies manage to make a one-day recording session in an old church one of their most satisfying listens. Featuring the sultry voice of Margo Timmins, the precise musicianship of her brothers Peter (on drums) and Michael (on guitar), and bassist Alan Anton, The Trinity Sessions is a spare, evocative, countrified-rock classic. Their inspired reworking of both "Blue Moon" and "Working On A Building" reveal the Timmins family to be talented interpreters and insightful neo-traditionalists. Mixing the ambitious songwriting of Margo and Michael Timmins with subdued covers of Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane" and Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," The Trinity Sessions is an exquisite collection that holds up quite well under repeated listenings. --Mitch Myers

Lay It Down  >>

In 1996 the Cowboy Junkies could have gone one of two ways: they could have veered away from their familiar melancholic, somber sound or dug deeper into the groove. They chose the latter. Margo Timmins's distinctively sleepy, seductive vocals never sounded better--here she perfects the art of the subtle attack, best exemplified by the radio hit "A Common Disaster." The band knows when to pull back (it lays a spare, delicate foundation for her wispy words on tracks like "Something More Besides You" and the achingly beautiful "Now I Know") and when to let a groove build ("Speaking Confidentially," "Lay It Down," "Come Calling"). "Angel Mine" wears the band's love for country music plainly on its sleeve, and the stunning "Bea's Song" shimmers. A definite highlight in the band's career. --Lorry Fleming

At the End of Paths Taken  >>

Despite its title, the new Cowboy Junkies album, At the End of Paths Taken, is as much about new beginnings as it is about endings. It is also about human connections, the struggle to sustain those connections over time, and the complexities that can arise even when those connections are maintained. It is, in other words, a classic Cowboy Junkies album - a suite of smart, richly textured songs that value subtlety over broad, generic strokes, songs that prize insight and casual revelations over easily digestible clichés. Family lies at the heart of the album's eleven songs, and, of course, that is appropriate, too. Three of the band's members - singer Margo Timmins; songwriter, producer and guitarist Michael Timmins; and drummer Peter Timmins - are siblings, and bassist Alan Anton has been a member since the group formed in Toronto in 1985. Few bands have lasted nearly as long with their original line-up intact, and fewer still have created as consistently satisfying a body of work.

Best of Cowboy Junkies  >>

The Caution Horses  >>

Black Eyed Man  >>

Black Eyed Man, an album that sounds like an aural facsimile of the parched earth in dead-heat summer, keeps the Cowboy Junkies' quiet, lonesome pop integrity intact. Michael Timmins's guitar threatens to cut loose from the band's low-key mooring, and "Oregon Hill" presents a touch of Southern blues. But it's all tempered by Margo Timmins's dusted-with-longing voice. The band is her pack and follows her voice, almost slowing to the vocal pacing. That facet marks the Junkies as a responsive, listenerly unit, touched by a unique rural-country-music bug, one that steers toward clear, patient guitar picking and a lot more to keep things moving with all deliberate quietude. Then there are the tributes that pair the Canadian quartet with Townes Van Zandt, which proves to be a fruitful musical handshake that takes the Junkies up a few notches in their speed (on Van Zandt's "To Live Is to Fly"). --Andrew Bartlett

Pale Sun, Crescent Moon  >>

The Cowboy Junkies' Michael Timmins is a most literary songwriter. On the Toronto quartet's Pale Sun Crescent Moon, Timmins imbeds lines from William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom into the song "First Recollection" and a line from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "The General in His Labyrinth" in the song "Seven Years" without it seeming the least bit awkward. He has found the perfect literary voice for his writing in his sister Margo Timmins, whose alto is all smoke and suggestion. Songs are not poems, however, and never was that distinction more obvious than it is here. The album's so-called songs float in atmospheric harmonies, unshaped by melody or meter. This droning music may seem haunting on first encounter, but by the third song the melodic monotony encourages dozing. --Geoffrey Himes

Early 21st Century Blues  >>

In February, 2005 the Cowboy Junkies gathered together for five days of music making at their Clubhouse studio in Toronto. Each band member brought along a handful of their favorite songs by other writers -- songs which focused on the themes of war, violence, fear, greed, ignorance and loss. The atmosphere that week was so magical that the band decided to simply roll tape and document the sessions. The result is Early 21st Century Blues, an album filled with a very special intimacy unmatched since the Junkies released their landmark The Trinity Session album 18 years ago. Early 21st Century Blues features interpretations of songs from artists such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and John Lennon, plus two new Junkies originals, and is the Junkies' own "small document of hope" for the times we live in.

Studio: Selected Studio Recordings 1986-1995  >>

Full title - Studio - Selected Studio Recordings 1986-1995. 1996 release is a thoughtfully compiled retrospective of their best album tracks including, 'Sweet Jane' & 'Misguided Angel', plus the previously unreleased 'Lost My Driving Wheel'. 14 tracks. BMG.