Cowboy Junkies

Cowboy Junkies have always carved out their own unique musical path. In 1988, the Toronto alt-country band released The Trinity Session, a spare, sombre album recorded in a church that featured an unlikely hit: a wistful, sad cover of Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” that later anchored the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. Cowboy Junkies had formed only in 1985, after a pair of longtime musical collaborators—songwriter/guitarist Michael Timmins and bassist Alan Anton—teamed up with Timmins’ brother Peter and sister Margo to form a band. After The Trinity Session, the band continued to push themselves forward into subtle new directions. Anchored by Margo’s keening, dusky voice, Cowboy Junkies dabbled in rootsy Americana (1990’s The Caution Horses) and more sinister fare (1996’s simmering “A Common Disaster”). Later on, the Timmins siblings explored the grief of their mother’s death through the harder-edged, piano-driven songs on 2020’s Ghosts.