June 27: lead vocalist of the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies – Margo Timmins- is 52-years-old today.

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Margo was born and spent most of her childhood in Montreal as one of six children. As young girl, Margo remembers rifling through her brother Michael's extensive record collection when she was a young girl. She remembers singing while doing the dishes, in school plays and pageants and singing Carole King songs at camp.

In 1977, the Timmins family had moved from Montreal to Toronto. After graduating from high school, Margo spent her evenings along with her brother Michael exploring the punk music scene in Toronto that was happening on Queen Street West. When Michael started his first band, the Hunger Project, Margo would hang out with the band, take the tickets, and carry the equipment.

In 1985, her brother Michael recruited Margo as the vocalist for the Cowboy Junkies even though she had never sung publicly before. It took a long time for Margo to get comfortable singing in front of an audience. In fact, many of the early shows had Margo singing with her back to the audience.

The Junkies, which also include brother Peter Timmons on drums and Alan Anton, first performed publicly at the Beverley Tavern and other clubs in Toronto's Queen Street West, including The Rivoli. Their 1986 debut album, was the blues-inspired Whites Off Earth Now!!, recorded using an ambisonic microphone in the family garage.

The group's fame spread with their second album, The Trinity Session, recorded in 1987 at Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity. Their sound, again using the ambisonic microphone, and their mix of blues, country, folk, rock and jazz earned them both critical attention and a cult following.

The Los Angeles Times named the recording as one of the ten best albums of 1988. The band was nominated for Group of the Year at the Juno Awards in 1990 and 1991. In the early 1990s Margo Timmins was named "one of the fifty most beautiful people in the world" by People Magazine.


The group has continued to tour North America, Europe, Japan and Australia with extensive North American and European tours following album releases in 2002 and 2004. In 2008, they released Trinity Revisited in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the original recording of The Trinity Session.

In 2009 Margo released solo album of covers Margo's Corner - Ty Tyrfu Sessions, Volume 1.

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For more about the Cowboy Junkies, visit their  Website at -

http://latentrecordings.com/cowboyjunkies/

 

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