Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session
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Free Music Notes for The Trinity Session
Free Music Review: Simply Outstanding
Hit: 5 Stars
Recorded live in November 1987 at Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto (and hence "The Trinity Session"), this was the Cowboy Junkies' second album. The track listing is made up of a number of self-penned tunes, a couple of traditional songs and a few cover versions. I never would have thought it possible that songs by Lou Reed and Hank Williams could appear on the same album without sounding at odds with each other...yet that is exactly what the band have achieved. There are so many outstanding tracks on this CD it's hard to pick out the highlights. The two traditional tunes - "Mining for Gold" and "Working on a Building" - would certainly be among my favourites. "Mining for Gold" opens the album, and is sung unaccompanied by Margo. Although only about a minute and a half long, it's beautifully delivered with a real sense of melancholy. "Working on a Building" is the other traditional tune. This time, the rest of the band are allowed to join in (!!) and the song is played with a slight jazzy feel. Alan Anton's bass playing, excellent throughout the album, really adds to the atmosphere on this song.
It was "Blue Moon Revisited" that first brought the band to my attention. Entirely different in sound and style to the original "Blue Moon", it's a beautifully laid back number with a hint of sadness and regret. "Sweet Jane", written by Lou Reed, has become a huge favourite of the Junkies' fans, and has been referred to as the band's signature tune. Alan's bass, again, contributes greatly to the mood on both songs.
Of the songs written solely by members of the bands, "Postcard Blues" and "Misguided Angel" are, for me, the best. A guest musician, Steve Shearer, provides the harmonica on the former - a contribution that allows the song to live up to its name.
The album was captured live, using a single microphone and cost only CDN $250 to record. It's also a great example of how keeping production work to a minimum can, at times, help the album. Admittedly, the quality of the songwriting, the playing and the singing is also a big help ! Margo, like the Irish folk / trad singer Cara Dillon, has a beautiful voice - it's something that really strikes home when a song is sung unaccompanied.
Free Music Review: Capturing Lightening in a Bottle
Hit: 5 Stars
This amazing album keeps finding it's way into play more than ten years after first hearing it. It contains the right people recording the right songs in the right place at the right time. If another act tried the same thing, most likely it would fail. In fact if the Junkies themselves tried something like this again, it's possible they would not succeed again. I know these are very strong words of praise, but I've never really heard anything like this collection. The band went to an old church, where they recorded a bunch of songs, some old, some new, with sparse accompanyment. It produces a haunting sound that reminds you somehow of a wide-awake 2 a.m.
It opens with the solo singing if "Mining for Gold" by lead singer Margo Timmins. No accompanyment. It does set the tone to say where their heads are. Call it a warm-up to the next one, "Mining for Gold". This reminds me of Sting's "I'll Be Watching You". With both songs, you can just relax and listen to the mysterious vocals. But if you want to dig into the lyrics, you'll find that both feature creepy male characters who are probably going to do something tragic given enough time. Yet both can also be categorized as romantic songs.
The next number is the album's most interesting, "Blue Moon Revisited". The song starts with some new lyrics with a different melody which convey a tribute to Elvis Presley, one of the many recorders of the song. It follows, one after the other, with two of the finest sounds in recorded history (IMHO). First, you get a two-note (or is it one longer note with the strings bent?) guitar seque into the "Blue Moon" we are more familiar with. But it's not quite that familiar because the second finest song of all time is Margo's ultra-smooth start of the words. This one gets the most play when we pop it in.
The rest of the work alternates between do-overs of classic pop songs, and some of their own material, which is very likeable. While the general sultry, slow tone of the album can sap one's mental energy by the end, all one has to hear is the beginning all over again to be revitalized into listening again.
This is a top-ten for me.
Free Music Review: A Timeless Gem
Hit: 5 Stars
I saw the Cowboy Junkies perform live last night (an outstanding performance), and it prompted me to again revisit this fine album.
On November 27, 1987, the Cowboy Junkies (siblings Margo Timmons, vocals, Michael Timmons, guitar and principal songwriter, Peter Timmons, drums, along with Alan Anton, bass) walked into the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, Canada, and recorded live (reportedly with a single microphone) in one day their second album The Trinity Session, a barebones gem of an album. In the early 1990s, a good friend and fellow guitarist turned me on to the album. I purchased it immediately, and it has been in rotation on my CD player ever since. Every time I throw it on with company, it elicits immediate interest.
Why is this album so special? The sound is so unique, ballads (originals and covers) consisting of a mellow blend of blues, country and alternative rock, featuring bare bones instrumentation and the sultry, breathy, soothing and restrained vocals of Margo Timmons. (I cannot compare this release with any of the Cowboy Junkies' other recorded works, as this is the only release of theirs with which I am familiar). This album has a unique sound and feel to it. The only other band I can compare this to is the 1990's band Mazzy Star, and if you like this album, that is a similar band worth checking out. (BTW, the Junkies' current live performance, which featured a six musician line-up and more psychedelic electronics to go along with the alt-country sound of the songs, often reminded me of early, pre-Dark Side, Pink Floyd).
This album has a remarkably cohesive sound and feel that places you right in the church with the Junkies. There are some truly outstanding tracks, including the Junkies' own "Misguided Angel" and "To Love Is to Bury," a reworking of "Blue Moon" titled "Blue Moon Revisited (Song For Elvis)," a remarkable cover of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and the absolute definitive performance of the Velvet Underground/Lou Reed classic "Sweet Jane."
This timeless release is one of the great seduction albums of all time. Very highly recommended!
Free Music Review: Essential Listening
Hit: 5 Stars
It remains a mystery to me why Cowboy Junkies and Freakwater haven't co-headlined a tour yet and called it "The Available Only By Prescription Tour." Talk about a license to print money!Seriously, this album ranks right up there with Astral Weeks and Time Out Of Mind for making you want to sleep under the bed with all the lights in the house on. One of the many stunning things this album manages to achieve that few do is maintain a sort of narrative thread throughout. Listening to it, you get the impression that this was recorded in one continuous take and that was that. Track after track sustains and adds another layer to the sweet melancholy that these musicians are so effortless at summoning. An obvious highlight is Sweet Jane with Margo singing like the band's recording contract was on the line. At the end of it you find yourself going "Lou? Lou who?"
For me, the centerpiece is Hank Williams Sr.'s I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. One of the great masterpieces of country music is reworked into an atmospheric excercise that, in lesser hands, could have come off like a Sarah MacLachlan or Enya outtake but here instead we are given a vital re-interpretation that proudly stands alongside not just the best covers of Williams' songs (Ray Charles' You Win Again comes to mind instantly) but with the originals themselves.
Going back to the lush atmosphere established by The Trinity Session, I was overjoyed when, after listening to it for the first time, I read the liner notes and discovered that it was recorded in one day inside a church in Canada. I say that because every time I listen to this music, I imagine myself standing outside an old, rustic church at dawn on a brutally cold winter morning. The only other album that does that to me is Astral Weeks and, like Van Morrison with that album, The Timmins' Clan & Co. paint their masterpiece here that serve as the basis of comparison for everything else they will ever record. God Bless!
Free Music Review: The Sounds Of Silence.
Hit: 5 Stars
How did so many people make so little noise? The Cowboy Junkies begged that question when this, their classic second album, took the world in a quiet storm. Mesmerizing in an absorbing way, the hushed recording does what so few others can do, it draws you in. It is nakedly intense, and gently unfolds song by song. Margo Timmins sings in a voice that invites comparisons to Patsy Cline and Emmylou Harris, infusing the CJ's country with blues and a huge dose of post-modern melancholy. The result was haunting and spooky, so low key that it barely registers when you turn it up loud. While this may scare a great many people off the Junkies, it will hypnotize many others into following them down this high and lonesome path.While the Junkies' best known song here was probably their somnambulant cover of "Sweet Jane," the brother and sister writing of Margo and Michael Timmins held its own. "Misguided Angel" could have easily been a Patsy Cline song, as it is, it companions "Walking After Midnight" flawlessly. Like the best of country blues, they know how to make you cry into your beer (or whatever you may have at the bar). The gentle sadness of their version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" could make a room full of Coal Miner's fathers drip tears in their beers.
That "The Trinity Session" came out in 1988 and still sounds idiosyncratic and original should tell you how essential this record remains. It is a quiet treasure.