It’s hard to stay this cool for this long. Over the years, many legacy acts drift apart or fall into nostalgic routine but not Cowboy Junkies. Currently on tour after 40 years together, the Junkies recently brought an enchanting set of songs old and new to The Birchmere for two sold-out nights.
Even as a 20-something recording in Toronto garage studios in the mid-1980s, vocalist Margo Timmins possessed a quiet gravitas which commanded attention. The 1988 album The Trinity Session, which mixed original material with classic covers performed in the band’s hushed country style, helped to define the Americana and Adult Alternative boom of the 1990s and 2000s. On songs like “Sweet Jane” and “Misguided Angel,” Cowboy Junkies crafted a beautifully delicate mix of folk, jazz, blues, and country traditions.
Over four decades and two dozen albums later, Cowboy Junkies have aged gracefully into their roles as elder statesmen in the music scene, playing with a confidence that is only earned over years of work and friendship. Margo is joined by her brothers Michael on guitar and Peter on drums, as well as Alan Anton on bass, and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bird on mandolin and harmonica.
After performing these songs together thousands of times, the band played with an unspoken ease that was magical to behold in person at The Birchmere on April 9, the first of their two nights there. On Trinity Session blues classic “Working on a Building,” Alan and Peter laid down a slinky beat with metronomic efficiency while Michael and Jeff offered beautiful call-and-response stylistic embellishments on guitar and harmonica. Margo sat in the center of it all, her eyes closed and her husky voice lingering in the pocket of the groove.
Watch Cowboy Junkies perform “Working on a Building” live at Newport Music Festival in 2008 via YouTube:
At The Birchmere, Margo mused repeatedly about the passage of time and the band’s changing relationships with their songs and their audience. Introducing their 1992 song “Black Eyed Man,” whose rakish title character is condemned to death for poisoning the town well but nonetheless wins the heart of the song’s narrator, Margo noted that she now empathizes with the young woman in the song whom she used to think of as “a real piece of work.” Before performing “Where Are You Tonight?”, about a ball cap-wearing, Wild Turkey-drinking lost lover, Margo joked that she could no longer spot young men in her crowds that fit the song’s profile as she used to in the early ’90s.
It’s true that Cowboy Junkies’ audience has aged alongside the band. Full disclosure, I’m a 28 year old cusper who grew up listening to my parents play the band’s music in the car. Looking around the room on Wednesday night, my friend and I were probably the youngest people in the crowd aside from a handful of children dragged along by their parents.
The Birchmere’s old time-y, supper club atmosphere provided the necessary space for the band to let it all linger. Cowboy Junkies songs craft narrative arcs and musical moods which are meant to be appreciated and pondered over, not merely consumed. The band split their performance into two sets, with the first showcasing some new material and the second covering hits from the Trinity Session as well as covers of Townes Van Zandt’s “Rake” and Lightning Hopkins’s “Shining Moon.” Margo performed with a lyric book open in front of her, its ponderous, phonebook-size weight testifying to the depth of the band’s catalogue. She didn’t refer to it once throughout the night.
Cowboy Junkies may be older, but their music remains as relevant as ever. Their repeated evocations of loss and impending doom (“heartache and misery type songs” Margo joked at one point) resonated deeply with the present mood of the capital city. On their new song “Hell is Real,” a simmering blues-y slowjam, Margo sang, “Hell is real, hell is hot/ Jesus is coming, ready or not” as Jeffer wailed away on the harmonica. They followed this up with the crashing rock n’roll epic “Coming Disaster,” off 1996’s Lay It Down. The lyrics evoked a revenge fantasy, with Margo singing in the first verse “I had a long list of names that I kept in my back pocket / But I’ve cut it down to one and your name’s at the top/ Won’t you share with me a common disaster?”
The band ended their set with their classic cover of “Blue Moon,” which reimagines Elvis’s song as a lounge-y Lynchean love song. Under a shimmering blue disco ball, Margo’s stunning vibrato and the band’s effortless groove cast a spell over the room. Cowboy Junkies returned to the stage for a brief encore that included a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “State Trooper” before concluding with 1998’s “Misguided Angel,” another tale about an irresistibly dangerous man. As the last notes faded away, the crowd’s stunned silence lasted a split second before erupting into standing ovation. It was a few minutes past 10pm, and it was Margo Timmins’s bedtime.
