Cowboy Junkies

Norwegian not noisy boys Kings Of Convenience may have called their debut album Quiet Is The New Loud but Canada’s Cowboy Junkies late 80’s recordings had already beaten them to it. They rocked…but very very quietly.

Formed in Toronto in 1985 after songwriter and guitarist Michael Timmins moved back home after living in England and playing in an experimental band called Germinal who made the type of music that “Even we didn’t want to listen to”.

He teamed up with his drummer brother Peter and social worker sister Margo and they did what all bands should do… headed straight for the garage with one microphone (Oh yes, Joe Strummer was right about that one) where they recorded the blues influenced album Whites Off Earth.

It was initially released on their own Latent label in 1986 and includes songs by Lightning Hopkins and State Trooper by Bruce Springsteen.

The follow up The Trinity Session was recorded in Toronto’s Church Of The Holy Trinity over a 14 hour session in November 1987. Like the previous album they’d used a single Calrec Ambisonic microphone, which captures sound as 4 separate signals, namely 360 degrees and then as left/right, front/back and up/down. It’s kind of quadraphonic, but without the troubling Mike Oldfield connotations.

The sound of the recordings though is very special. What you hear is a band playing stripped to the bone arrangements with nothing out of place and just letting the songs breathe. You can hear the restraint…. and Margo Timmins voice.

The thing is that even though she doesn’t have a wide range, power or even a particularly expressive voice you just get sucked in by the arrangements, the fragility of her voice and the fact that it just sounds so right. The major feeling that comes through is resignation. And that resignation can sound bleak and scary.

The uniqueness of the sound is down to how it was recorded and conceived, with the band playing quietly and using the softness of Margo’s voice as a strength. Dusty Springfield’s unbeatable album Dusty In Memphis was recorded with the amps turned down low but everything closely miked.

By using the Ambisonic Microphone, the Cowboy Junkies would have been forced into really having to think about how the equipment was positioned and volume…just like at Chips Mormans American studios in Memphis in 1968

The Hank Williams song I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry and Patsy Cline’s Walking After Midnight are played as desolate Blues. Sweet Jane is played as the Velvet’s 1969 live version rather than Loaded’s. Misguided Angel is the bands own song; it’s played as a warm country folk song, with harmonica and accordion. Achingly beautiful.

The Caution Horses was conventionally recorded and released in 1990, after the band had signed to RCA. It includes a cover of Neil Young’s Powderfinger where the discordant guitar is replaced by mandolins. The tale of the Deliverance/Southern Comfort style shoot out between the Authorities gunboat and the baffled boy from the Backwoods gains the resignation in Margo’s voice but loses Young’s scowl. It still all ends in tears though.

Sun Comes Up (It’s Tuesday Morning) is a really good song about losing the familiar and comfortable routines after the end of a relationship, but gaining the benefits of having a bit more room in the bed. I really like the line “Telephone's ringing, but I don't answer it 'cause everybody knows that good news always sleeps till noon”

I saw them at Birmingham Town Hall on that tour, a really good venue acoustically where the band’s subtleties came through really well. If any pins were dropped they sounded perfect.

1992’s Black Eyed Man puts a bit more Country Rock into the Country feel and while it doesn’t have the distinctive and unusual sound of the earlier records, it does still have some dark, clever songs like Murder In The Trailer Park Tonight.

They left RCA for Geffen and are now releasing material on their own Latent label again. Subsequent albums and tours have included 15 minute swamp rock guitar wig outs. The forthcoming acoustic tour though could well capture the magical feel of The Trinity Session.

The new album, At The End Of Paths Taken is due out in April and new material has been posted on their My Space page. http://www.myspace.com/cowboyjunkies

Brand New World moves from a swirling cinematic feel into a Marquee Moon style build up…with strings. For old times sake though I’d look at Sun Comes Up (It’s Tuesday Morning) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_VmxI60kFM

It’s a terrific song but the video absolutely T’Paus. Slow motion bedrolling and all. I do have a friend though who is a connoisseur of Margo Timmins and has spent the last 18 years practising his Ranch skills in a Guildford semi ready for the inevitable day when they will be together on the Canadian Prairie.

She’s hoping to postpone the inevitable though…so it’s up to the rest of us to buy the album, t shirt and tickets for the gig.