200 More Miles

Sometimes a band come around who create an album that is a perfect encapsulation of a sound, of those people in that room making those songs at that exact point in time. They may go on to make further records and albums, some of them very fine, but nothing they do will ever come close to that one off capturing of the moment. In November 1988 the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies did that with their album The Trinity Session. The album was mostly recorded in one night, 27th November 1987 live in Toronto, at the Church of The Holy Trinity, with the band all sitting round one microphone. They played a hushed, spooky but beautiful set of songs, originals, traditional songs and covers, with the voice of Margo Timmins a ghostly presence on top. The covers famously included perhaps the definitive version of The Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane (Lou Reed was of that opinion). But apart from Margo's voice, the brushed drums, the stripped back electric guitar, and the other instruments- fiddle, pedal steel, harmonica, accordion- the biggest presence on the album is the natural reverb of the church, the echo that surrounds the group as they move around, towards and away from the sole microphone. 

Their previous album, Whites Off Earth Now!, saw them tour the south of the USA and the music they heard down in the Deep South states, country and western, informed the song writing and selection for The Trinity Session.  Their own song, 200 More Miles, is a song about life on the road...

200 More Miles

The 1990 follow up to The Trinity Session, The Caution Horses, was a good album. Their cover of Neil Young's  Powderfinger, the opening song and single Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning and a few other songs were good and it had the same slowed down style and hushed approach but it was more polished and as a result lost a little of what made The Trinity Session so special. 

These two clips came my way recently and I don't believe I've ever seen them before. First is Cowboy Junkies in London at MTV's studios playing live and being interviewed for 120 Minutes, a ten minute clip with Margo talking and a stripped down version of the band playing

But there's also this if you've got the time and inclination, a full live performance by the band from 1990 in Koln, Germany, filmed for German TV. Slow music and slow TV in front of a fairly subdued audience. If you're in a rush and want the sweet hit of Sweet Jane, it's starts at 53.01.