Written in 2021 during the COVID epoch, while the Timmins family was navigating their father’s worsening dementia, Such Ferocious Beauty unflinchingly addresses impermanence and the ways we strive to find meaning and connection. While Cowboy Junkies draw from the bluesy […]
Like many bands, Canada’s Cowboy Junkies started out relying heavily on other people’s songs. Their debut album, 1986’s Whites Off Earth Now!!, consisted largely of blues standards, while a wonderfully woozy version of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” from the […]
This week we’ve got a stack of new releases from some longtime alt-country heroes — including the Jayhawks, Rodney Crowell, and Cowboy Junkies. The Jayhawks — our Spotlight artist for July — have recorded for their own a batch of […]
Dark times lead to creative bursts. We’re all just waiting for perspective. A quarter century from now, it’s very likely cultural historians will rate the back half of this decade as a relative apex for artistic quality, as mourning turns […]
San Francisco is cold and the off-airport rental lot looks as grey as the clouds. The bright red Ford Focus, pockmarked with scratches and door dings, provides the only blemish of color upon the dour landscape. I drop a few […]
The box set is made up of four discs that include remastered versions of the three studio albums that were released in the 2000’s Open, One Soul Now and At The End Of Paths Taken and a fourth disc, called […]
The Cowboy Junkies sounded a bit more psychedelic rock than the last time I photographed them. Now, some of their songs always had a bit of a psychedelic or indie rock sound but what I heard the other night was […]
While many of the early bluesmen were six-string pickin’, singing and whooping it up at juke joints throughout the Mississippi Delta, focusing more on vice than virtue, Blind Willie Johnson was playing his unique guitar style and singing in his […]
Michael Timmins sees the newest Cowboy Junkies album, Notes Falling Slow, as “a nice stepping stone to whatever our next recording project will be.” The four-disc Notes Falling Slow, released in October, follows 2012’s wonderful five-disc box set, The Nomad […]
The Cowboy Junkies’ early efforts were distinguished in large part by their internal consistency in tone and content: the bluesy urgency of Whites Off Earth Now, the hushed tones of The Trinity Session, the countryish charm of The Caution Horses. […]
