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$80.00

Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions

Format: LP
Label: RCA Victor 8568-1-R, Latent Recordings LATEX 5
Year: 1988
Origin: Toronto, Ontario, 🇨🇦
Genre: rock, folk
Keyword: 
Value of Original Title: $80.00
Make Inquiry/purchase: email ryder@robertwilliston.com
Release Type: Albums
Websites:  https://cowboyjunkies.wpengine.com/merch/
Playlist: MOCM TOP 100 CDN ALBUMS, MOCM Top 1000 Canadian Albums

Tracks

Side 1

Track Name
Mining For Gold
Misguided Angel
I Don't Get It
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
To Love is to Bury

Side 2

Track Name
200 More Miles
Dreaming My Dreams With You
Sweet Jane
Postcard Blues
Walking After Midnight

Photos

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Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions (7)

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Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions (6)

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Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions (5)

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Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions (4)

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Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions (3)

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Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions (2)

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The Trinity Sessions

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Information/Write-up

Who says you can't make a great record in one day -- or night, as the case may be? The Trinity Session was recorded in one night using one microphone, a DAT recorder, and the wonderful acoustics of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. Interestingly, it's the album that broke the Cowboy Junkies in the United States for their version of "Sweet Jane," which included the lost verse. It's far from the best cut here, though. There are other covers, such as Margo Timmins' a cappella read of the traditional "Mining for Gold," a heroin-slow version of Hank Williams' classic "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Dreaming My Dreams With You" (canonized by Waylon Jennings), and a radical take of the Patsy Cline classic "Walkin' After Midnight" that closes the disc. Those few who had heard the band's previous album, Whites Off Earth Now!!, were aware that, along with Low, the Cowboy Junkies were the only band at the time capable of playing slower than Neil Young and Crazy Horse -- and without the ear-threatening volume. The Timmins family -- Margo, guitarist and songwriter Michael, drummer Peter, and backing vocalist and guitarist John -- along with bassist Alan Anton and a few pals playing pedal steel, accordion, and harmonica, paced everything to crawl.

That said, it works in that every song has its own texture, slowly and deliberately unfolding from blues and country and drones. An example is the Michael and Margo song "I Don't Get It," ushered in with a few drawling guitar lines, a spooky harmonica, and brushed drums. Margo Timmins doesn't have a large range and doesn't need it as she scratches each song's surface like an itch until it bleeds its truth. This is also true on "Misguided Angel," another original where the verses become nearly a round alternating between her voice and Michael's snaky spare guitar lines to fill an almost unimaginable space. The Williams tune becomes a dirge in the Cowboys' hands. It's a funeral song, or an elegy for one who has dragged herself so far into the oblivion of isolation that there is no place left to go but home. Michael's guitar moves around the changes as bassist Anton plays them; he colors the space allowing for Margo to fill the melodic space spot-on, yet stretching each syllable out to the breaking point. For most, this was the Cowboy Junkies' debut -- Whites Off Earth Now!! was re-released in the States a few years later -- and it established them firmly in the forefront of the "alternative" scene with radio and MTV. As an album, it's still remarkable at how timeless it sounds, and its beauty is -- in stark contrast to its presentation -- voluminous and rich, perhaps even eternal.
-Thom Jurek, Allmusic

The Trinity Session is the second studio album by Canadian alternative country band Cowboy Junkies, released in early 1988 by Latent Recordings in Canada, and re-released worldwide later in the year on RCA Records. "Working on a Building" and "Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)" did not appear on the Latent Records release. "Blue Moon Revisited" was originally released on It Came from Canada, Vol. 4 (1988), a compilation of Canadian independent bands.

The music was recorded inside Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity on November 27, 1987, with the band circled around a single microphone. The album includes a mixture of original material by the band and covers of classic folk, rock and country songs. Notable among the songs is the band's most famous single, a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane", based on the version found on 1969: The Velvet Underground Live (1974) rather than the later studio version from Loaded (1970). Also included is "Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)", which is both a cover and an original, combining a new song by the band with the pop standard "Blue Moon".

In 2007, the album was performed live in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties' Don't Look Back series. Also that year, the band returned to the Church of the Holy Trinity to record a new version of the Trinity Session with guest musicians Natalie Merchant, Vic Chesnutt and Ryan Adams. This new set of recordings was released as Trinity Revisited to commemorate the 20th anniversary of The Trinity Session.

The recording sessions
According to the band's website, the direction of The Trinity Session was influenced by music they had heard while touring the southern United States in support of their debut studio album Whites Off Earth Now!! (1986). The album's lyrics and instrumentation were lifted from the classic country groups to which the band was exposed, and the song "200 More Miles" was written in reference to the band's life on the road.

As they had done on Whites, Cowboy Junkies wanted to record live with one stereo microphone direct to tape. Although it is stated on the album cover that the recording was made on two-track R-DAT, according to recording engineer Peter J. Moore, it was actually recorded on a Sony Betamax SL-2000 video cassette deck connected to a Sony PCM-F1 analog/digital converter, using one single Calrec ambisonic microphone.

Moore suggested the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto for its natural reverb. To better persuade the officials of the historic church, the band claimed to be the Timmins Family Singers and said they were recording a Christmas special for radio. The session began on the morning of November 27, 1987. The group first recorded the songs with the fewest instruments and then the songs with gradually more complex arrangements. In this way, Moore and the band were able to solve acoustic problems one by one. To better balance Margo Timmins' vocals against the electric guitars and drums, she was recorded through a PA system that had been left behind by a previous group. By making subtle changes in volume and placement relative to the microphone over six hours, Moore and the band had finally reached the distinctive sound of the album by the time the last of the guest musicians arrived at the church.

Contrary to popular myth, the album was not entirely recorded in one day. In the hustle of the first recording session, the band did not have time to record Margo Timmins' a cappella chanting on "Mining for Gold". She and Moore recorded the song a few days later during the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's lunch break.

Sleeve notes state that the recording was not mixed, overdubbed or edited in any way.

The band followed this recording with a three-day session in April 1989 at a Quaker meeting house, but decided against releasing those songs until 2022, when they put out Sharon – The Lost Album.

Accolades
According to website Acclaimed Music, the album is the 946th-most acclaimed album ever released. In 2000, it was ranked number 999 in the third edition of the book All Time Top 1000 Albums It was listed as the 42nd best album of the 1980s by Pitchfork in 2002. In Bob Mersereau's 2007 book The Top 100 Canadian Albums, The Trinity Session was included at number 62. In 2015, the album was named the winner in the 1980s category of the inaugural Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize, an annual Canadian music award for classic albums released prior to the creation of the Polaris Music Prize. It was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005).

Margo Timmins: lead vocals
Michael Timmins: guitar
Alan Anton: bass
Peter Timmins: drums
John Timmins: guitar, backing vocals
Kim Deschamps: pedal steel guitar, dobro, bottleneck slide guitar
Jeff Bird: fiddle, harmonica, mandolin
Steve Shearer: harmonica
Jaro Czwewinec: accordion

Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Peter Moore

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