The Partridge Family have nothing on Cowboy Junkies, who play the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines on Sept. 27.
Like the fictional pop group, Cowboy Junkies is a family band, composed of siblings Margot, Michael, and Peter Timmins, along with Michael’s longtime friend Alan Anton. But in contrast, there are three other Timmins siblings, a brother and two sisters, who are not members of the Toronto-based band.
As well, Cowboy Junkies never had a Shirley Jones figure driving them around in a brightly-painted repurposed school bus, another major difference. And they certainly have never delivered the bright, sunny pop featured in the show and on Partridge Family albums from the early 1970s. Finally, that sitcom lasted only four years. The Cowboy Junkies are closing in on 40.
“When we get together as a band, it all comes naturally,” says Michael on the phone from his Toronto home. “And there’s something about the way we connect musically that has a very distinctive sound. We always try to keep things fresh. Only the four of us can make this noise, and we never take that for granted.”
With Margot’s haunting, often softly delivered vocals, Michael’s fuzz-drenched guitar work, Peter and Alan laying down a steady rhythm on drums and bass and unofficial fifth member Jeff Bird’s mandolin and harmonica, they produce a sound that could be described as a ferocious kind of beauty.
In fact, the band pretty much coined that phrase on June 2 when they released their 20th album, Such Ferocious Beauty.
The 10 original songs, all written or co-written by Michael, are classic Cowboy Junkies in sound and feel. They are that rare band who has consistently progressed through four decades while at the same time staying true to their roots, which go back to the 1986 release of their debut album, Whites Off Earth Now!!.
“From the very beginning we’ve exploited that element,” Timmins says. “Having Margot’s vocal there attracts people, and we put something behind it that oftentimes is discordant or aggressive. It’s the juxtaposition of that ferociousness and that beauty. For this record we really pushed that formula.”
That first album in 1986 was very blues-based, featuring covers of standards by Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker and Big Joe Williams. Two years later they made waves across North America with the release of The Trinity Session, recorded in a Toronto church with the band gathered around a single microphone.
Such Ferocious Beauty was instead recorded in the band’s Toronto studio, The Hangar.
“We bought the building about 15 years ago,” says Timmins. “It has a few apartments that we rent out in the back and our studio space is there. We’ve been recording there for years now. It’s always exciting to gather together there for our rehearsals, too, before heading back out on the road.”
Like their 2020 album Ghosts, Such Ferocious Beauty deals with deep loss. That previous eight-song collection was a reflection on the passing of their mother, Barbara. The new one deals with their father John’s dementia and subsequent death.
That’s painfully clear with the first song, What I Lost. The album begins with the lines “I woke up this morning, didn’t know who I was / I looked at the room, I didn’t know where I was / Or if I ever was,” and drifts into a reminiscence of the Quebec countryside, where John and Barbara raised their children. It perfectly captures the confusion of someone suffering from dementia.
Elsewhere, there’s the classic mythology of Circe and Penelope, with “a life full of regret and dreams,” and Hell is Real, where Margot sings “I’m scared, and I’m angry, and I’m lonely.” Michael insists that the song is more ironic than it is fatalistic.
“The record was written in the summer of 2020, right when we were in the depths of COVID,” he says. “And there was all that political and social stuff that was happening in the States. And with Dad getting deeper into dementia, all those elements came together to form many of the ideas and feelings of this record.”
As the band’s principal songwriter but not its vocalist, he’s fortunate to have a singer to whom he rarely has to explain the ideas behind his songs.
“Margot and I are number three and four of the six siblings,” Michael says. “We’re very close in age and in what we are going through in life. She knew what was going on and was a part of it. When I write about personal, private things she always has her own insight into that because she’s living it too.”
In recent years the band has been going through the tapes of their sessions from throughout their career. They’ve released expanded versions of The Trinity Session and their third album, 1990’s The Caution Horses, both with early demos. And their 2022 record Songs of the Recollection was a collection of cover versions, many of which have become favourites in their live sets.
Timmins promises that the St. Catharines show, coincidentally taking place at the PAC’s Partridge Hall Wednesday, will feature some of those cover songs, as well music from throughout their career, with a shorter first set of numbers from the new album.
For information and to purchase tickets to the Cowboy Junkies show, visit firstontariopac.ca.