Sweet Jane

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Why don't we mellow it out a bit this autumnal Friday evening...

In 1987, the Cowboy Junkies, one of Canada's finest musical acts, recorded The Trinity Session at Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity. Released in 1988, it's an exquisitely beautiful and haunting album.

In 2007, many albums later, the Junkies went back and re-recorded the entire album. The new version, Trinity Revisited, released the same year, is simply magnificent. Profoundly intimate, it also achieves a soaring grandeur that marks perhaps the highest point they've ever reached. And Margo Timmins, with one of the most distinctive voices in music, is simply amazing, as usual. Guests include Ryan Adams and Natalie Merchant.

The two-disc release includes a DVD of the performance. It, too, is fantastic.

Highly recommended. You can find it at Amazon Canada, Amazon US, or, well, pretty much anywhere else. (I don't know if or where it's available internationally.) Or download it at iTunes, or wherever you get your music.

Here, below, are the Junkies, from Trinity Revisited, performing one of their most well-known songs, "Sweet Jane."