Music Arcades: Cowboy Junkies: The Radio One Sessions

If you'd asked me how many Cowboy Junkies albums I have, I'd have guessed at four or five. Turns out I have eight, and one single. Arguably this is too many, and I noticed the Amazon customer review that says, "Unless you are a hardened Junkies fan… this CD isn't for you… I think the Junkies are great but I'm not sure why this CD was released."

But as the CD started, I thought, "Yes, surprisingly, I do want to hear another version of Sun Comes Up… just very subtly different from the original." It's not all good, but the Junkies are the kind of act where small changes in microphone position make a big difference to the space in the sound they make. I had that thought before I read Michael Timmins' sleeve note which tells a story about setting up microphone positions for the first BBC session. The way he tells it mocks the BBC staff involved (named elsewhere as Peter Watts and Ted de Bono). Whether the criticisms are warranted or not, the quality of the recordings on the two BBC sessions at the start and end of the CD is noticeably superior to the one in the middle for Nicky Horne, where no engineers are credited — I guess because it's not a full-band performance and they didn't do a full studio set-up.

Such were the thoughts that visited me as I made my way through my eighth, and last, Cowboy Junkies album.