The Trinity Session - 20 Years On
28/11/07 23:12 Filed in: Music
Yesterday was an anniversary that I had in the back
of my mind for a while as a potential post, and
wouldn’t you know it, I forgot about it.
Twenty years ago, on Friday 27 November 1987, a little-known Canadian band called Cowboy Junkies set themselves up in a church in Toronto to record some tracks. Using just a single ambisonic microphone, Michael Timmins, along with his sister Margo and his brother Peter, family friend Alan Anton, and a few others committed to tape a very special recording.
The Trinity Session (named after the church in
which the recording took place) is one of the most
haunting, captivating and devastatingly beautiful
collections of songs that you are likely to hear in
your lifetime. A mixture of originals and covers, it
veers from folk to country to blues to rock. They
took country standards made famous by the likes of
Hank Williams and Patsy Cline and completely
reinterpreted them.
I discovered the album sometime around 1989, having read several rave reviews. Not being a great aficionado of country music at the time, I wasn’t really impressed with my first listen. But I found myself going back to it, until I was listening to it at least once a day. It is the only record I have ever owned that I have physically worn out. I played my vinyl copy so many times that it is now scratched and worn beyond redemption. I subsequently bought it again on CD.
What makes this album so special? Looking at it dispassionately, it is quite raw and sparse. Michael Timmins’s guitar work is pedestrian for a lot of the album, simple strumming with some none-too-taxing lead playing. Margo Timmins’s voice is not that of a virtuoso vocalist, and from a technical point of view, her range is quite limited. But in a way, these limitations end up as a positive. Take the most famous song on the album, their reworking of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane”. This is a three-chord song with a bridge, and it is the simplicity of the song that allows the band to make it their own. They strip down the song to its basic elements, slow down the tempo, and build it back up again as their own song. It is, of course, the same song that Reed and others have recorded, but the Cowboy Junkies’ version is probably the most distinctive out there.
The tracks on the album, and my views on them are as follows.
Mining for Gold
A traditional miners’ song, sung unaccompanied by Margo Timmins, sets the scene for what is to follow. By the time this track is over, you know that they are not going to break into a chorus of “Hey, Hey, We’re The Junkies.”
Misguided Angel
An original composition, told from the point of view of a young woman who wants to marry a man who does not meet the approval of her family. The arrangement is a folk song, with the core band augmented by harmonica, accordion and dobro.
Blue Moon Revisited (A Song For Elvis)
This wasn’t on the original vinyl release. It consists of an original song of love lost, segued onto a reworking of the Elvis Presley version of the song written by Richard Roger and Lorentz Hart..
I Don’t Get It
Written by Margo and Michael Timmins, this blues number ponders the mysteries of life. Steve Shearer’s harmonica playing, along with Michael Timmins’s guitar give this song its distinctively blues flavour.
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
This for me is the highlight of the album. There have been dozens, maybe even hundreds, of versions of Hank Williams’s most famous song, but hardly any of them (Hank’s included) capture the utter desolation of the song. Cowboy Junkies slowed down the tempo, restricted the instrumentation to guitar, bass and brushed drums, and Margo’s achingly beautiful voice. You really believe that she “has lost her will to live, I’m so lonesome I could cry.” But then Kim Deschamps comes in with a pedal steel solo of exquisite beauty, as if the sun is about to rise over the horizon of gloom. Utterly, utterly gorgeous.
To Love Is To Bury
Just when we thought we were coming back into the light, this original composition plunges us back into the darkness. As the title might suggest, it is again a tale of love and loss, and to compound that, one of regret. Two lovers argue, and he dies before they get a chance to make up. Delivered to us in straight country tones, sung from the point of view of the surviving lover. Kim Deschamps features here again, with a beautifully understated dobro solo.
200 More Miles
I remember one of the original reviewers of the album saying that Michael Timmins need never write another song ever again because this one was so perfect. This is the strongest original composition on the album by a long way. It deals with the loneliness of the road, ostensibly from the point of view of touring with a band, but it could equally be applied to anyone who spends extended periods of time away from home for their career.
Dreaming My Dreams With You
A cover, and the weakest track on the album.
Working On A Building
This was not on the original vinyl release, and I have to say that I don’t really have much of an opinion of it. It reminds me a bit of some of the stuff the band did on their little-known debut album “Whites Off Earth Now!”
Sweet Jane
This track is the best-known one from the album, and featured in the soundtrack of Oliver Stone’s movie “Natural Born Killers”. As I mentioned above, the simplicity of the song is captured wonderfully here.
Postcard Blues
A sparse, original blues number. A foot taps out a beat, and Margo comes in with the lines:
“Especially with my head pounding
And lying helpless in my bed
I long for you and your expert hands
To ease this white heat from my head”
Then the guitar comes in.
“And you boast that you knew
All the pressure points inside
And that you could just as easily kill me
Beneath the desire that I hide”
“But as your patient I knew
That your healing powers had grown
From a sore that's far far deeper
Than this heart where the pain was spawned”
A piercing harmonica solo from Steve Shearer
“With my head again clear
I think of words to send to you
To coax you back to my side
But always leave out ‘I love you’
“And then through my front door
A picture of a faraway land
And to with love on the back
And once again I reach for my pen”
Which then effortlessly leads into…
Walking After Midnight
Once again, the approach to a standard is to pull the reins up and slow everything down. The honky tonk of Patsy Cline is replaced by a slow blues number with accordion and slide guitar, which finishes the album off.
The Trinity Session remains one of the few albums that I own, of which will never tire. It had a profound influence on my taste in music, and opened me up to country-influenced music. Looking through my iTunes library today, you will see such artists as Gram Parsons, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Calexico, Johnny Cash, Steve Earle, etc., and there is the possibility that I might never have allowed myself to listen to them had it not been for The Trinity Session. My sister once suggested, only half-jokingly, that it was one of the factors all those years ago that triggered the nascent relationship between myself and the woman that was to become my wife, and she's not too far out. A casual conversation about music shortly after we first met revealed a deep mutual love of the album, and things just developed from there.
Cowboy Junkies never repeated the wonder of the Trinity Session. Maybe because it happened so early in their career, everyone expected that greater things were to come. But they didn’t. They released a number of notable albums, but none of them came anywhere close to the magic that they captured that Friday in the Church of the Holy Trinity.
Earlier this year, they went back to the church to relive that day, and brought with them some friends to help. “Trinity Revisited” is the result, a CD and DVD to mark the 20th anniversary of the original recording, with guest appearances from Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant and Vic Chesnutt.
I’ll probably buy it, even if it’s only to get Ryan Adams’s version of “200 More Miles”. But I doubt if the new recording of the entire experience will improve on the original.
Edited 29.11.07: Tidied things up and added in some links and videos.
Twenty years ago, on Friday 27 November 1987, a little-known Canadian band called Cowboy Junkies set themselves up in a church in Toronto to record some tracks. Using just a single ambisonic microphone, Michael Timmins, along with his sister Margo and his brother Peter, family friend Alan Anton, and a few others committed to tape a very special recording.
I discovered the album sometime around 1989, having read several rave reviews. Not being a great aficionado of country music at the time, I wasn’t really impressed with my first listen. But I found myself going back to it, until I was listening to it at least once a day. It is the only record I have ever owned that I have physically worn out. I played my vinyl copy so many times that it is now scratched and worn beyond redemption. I subsequently bought it again on CD.
What makes this album so special? Looking at it dispassionately, it is quite raw and sparse. Michael Timmins’s guitar work is pedestrian for a lot of the album, simple strumming with some none-too-taxing lead playing. Margo Timmins’s voice is not that of a virtuoso vocalist, and from a technical point of view, her range is quite limited. But in a way, these limitations end up as a positive. Take the most famous song on the album, their reworking of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane”. This is a three-chord song with a bridge, and it is the simplicity of the song that allows the band to make it their own. They strip down the song to its basic elements, slow down the tempo, and build it back up again as their own song. It is, of course, the same song that Reed and others have recorded, but the Cowboy Junkies’ version is probably the most distinctive out there.
The tracks on the album, and my views on them are as follows.
Mining for Gold
A traditional miners’ song, sung unaccompanied by Margo Timmins, sets the scene for what is to follow. By the time this track is over, you know that they are not going to break into a chorus of “Hey, Hey, We’re The Junkies.”
Misguided Angel
An original composition, told from the point of view of a young woman who wants to marry a man who does not meet the approval of her family. The arrangement is a folk song, with the core band augmented by harmonica, accordion and dobro.
Blue Moon Revisited (A Song For Elvis)
This wasn’t on the original vinyl release. It consists of an original song of love lost, segued onto a reworking of the Elvis Presley version of the song written by Richard Roger and Lorentz Hart..
I Don’t Get It
Written by Margo and Michael Timmins, this blues number ponders the mysteries of life. Steve Shearer’s harmonica playing, along with Michael Timmins’s guitar give this song its distinctively blues flavour.
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
This for me is the highlight of the album. There have been dozens, maybe even hundreds, of versions of Hank Williams’s most famous song, but hardly any of them (Hank’s included) capture the utter desolation of the song. Cowboy Junkies slowed down the tempo, restricted the instrumentation to guitar, bass and brushed drums, and Margo’s achingly beautiful voice. You really believe that she “has lost her will to live, I’m so lonesome I could cry.” But then Kim Deschamps comes in with a pedal steel solo of exquisite beauty, as if the sun is about to rise over the horizon of gloom. Utterly, utterly gorgeous.
To Love Is To Bury
Just when we thought we were coming back into the light, this original composition plunges us back into the darkness. As the title might suggest, it is again a tale of love and loss, and to compound that, one of regret. Two lovers argue, and he dies before they get a chance to make up. Delivered to us in straight country tones, sung from the point of view of the surviving lover. Kim Deschamps features here again, with a beautifully understated dobro solo.
200 More Miles
I remember one of the original reviewers of the album saying that Michael Timmins need never write another song ever again because this one was so perfect. This is the strongest original composition on the album by a long way. It deals with the loneliness of the road, ostensibly from the point of view of touring with a band, but it could equally be applied to anyone who spends extended periods of time away from home for their career.
Dreaming My Dreams With You
A cover, and the weakest track on the album.
Working On A Building
This was not on the original vinyl release, and I have to say that I don’t really have much of an opinion of it. It reminds me a bit of some of the stuff the band did on their little-known debut album “Whites Off Earth Now!”
Sweet Jane
This track is the best-known one from the album, and featured in the soundtrack of Oliver Stone’s movie “Natural Born Killers”. As I mentioned above, the simplicity of the song is captured wonderfully here.
Postcard Blues
A sparse, original blues number. A foot taps out a beat, and Margo comes in with the lines:
“Especially with my head pounding
And lying helpless in my bed
I long for you and your expert hands
To ease this white heat from my head”
Then the guitar comes in.
“And you boast that you knew
All the pressure points inside
And that you could just as easily kill me
Beneath the desire that I hide”
“But as your patient I knew
That your healing powers had grown
From a sore that's far far deeper
Than this heart where the pain was spawned”
A piercing harmonica solo from Steve Shearer
“With my head again clear
I think of words to send to you
To coax you back to my side
But always leave out ‘I love you’
“And then through my front door
A picture of a faraway land
And to with love on the back
And once again I reach for my pen”
Which then effortlessly leads into…
Walking After Midnight
Once again, the approach to a standard is to pull the reins up and slow everything down. The honky tonk of Patsy Cline is replaced by a slow blues number with accordion and slide guitar, which finishes the album off.
The Trinity Session remains one of the few albums that I own, of which will never tire. It had a profound influence on my taste in music, and opened me up to country-influenced music. Looking through my iTunes library today, you will see such artists as Gram Parsons, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Calexico, Johnny Cash, Steve Earle, etc., and there is the possibility that I might never have allowed myself to listen to them had it not been for The Trinity Session. My sister once suggested, only half-jokingly, that it was one of the factors all those years ago that triggered the nascent relationship between myself and the woman that was to become my wife, and she's not too far out. A casual conversation about music shortly after we first met revealed a deep mutual love of the album, and things just developed from there.
Cowboy Junkies never repeated the wonder of the Trinity Session. Maybe because it happened so early in their career, everyone expected that greater things were to come. But they didn’t. They released a number of notable albums, but none of them came anywhere close to the magic that they captured that Friday in the Church of the Holy Trinity.
Earlier this year, they went back to the church to relive that day, and brought with them some friends to help. “Trinity Revisited” is the result, a CD and DVD to mark the 20th anniversary of the original recording, with guest appearances from Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant and Vic Chesnutt.
I’ll probably buy it, even if it’s only to get Ryan Adams’s version of “200 More Miles”. But I doubt if the new recording of the entire experience will improve on the original.
Edited 29.11.07: Tidied things up and added in some links and videos.