By Scott McLennan

Cowboy Junkies has simply been too busy to wallow in the past, which has meant a lot of great songs have been untouched in concert.

While at times “nostalgia” is a dirty word in the arts, letting Cowboy Junkies become a little nostalgic on its 40th anniversary will actually be welcome.

The band has been releasing new material consistently throughout its career, and each album typically produces a two-year cycle of concerts that focus on the most-current release. The band simply has been too busy to wallow in the past, which has meant a lot of great songs have been untouched in concert.

But when Cowboy Junkies does return to the area for concerts on Sept. 25 at the Shubert Theater in Boston and Sept. 26 at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, N.H., the band will intentionally be taking a look back.

“We always try to balance old material and new material,” said Michael Timmins, the Cowboy Junkies’ principal songwriter and guitarist. “But doing something to celebrate a 40th anniversary, there’s going to be nostalgia to it. We’ve been playing some songs off our first album Whites Off Earth Now!! and looking at the middle-era albums, and reviving material from the Nomad Series (of the 2010s). This isn’t the 40^th anniversary of The Trinity Sessions.”

By that, Timmins means the band’s most famous album won’t necessarily grab all the attention during the anniversary jaunt. Not that Cowboy Junkies is distancing itself from the haunting and hypnotic 1988 tour de force that launched the band. In fact, Cowboy Junkies has been using “Misguided Angel” from The Trinity Sessions as its opening song, and it is fair for fans to expect a rendition (though not necessarily the same one the band used for the recording) of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane,” since the version on Trinity Sessions became the band’s first popular hit.

The journey thus far from the 1986 album Whites off Earth Now!! to 2023’s Such Ferocious Beauty began in 1985 in Toronto. Timmins and his long-time friend and bandmate from other projects, Alan Anton, who plays bass, got together to recruit Margo, the guitar player’s sister, to sing, and Peter, their brother, to play drums. The Cowboy Junkies set out to explore alternative rock, blues and jazz, embracing everything from the gauzy textures of The Cure to the minimalism of Robert Johnson to the angular routes of improvisation exemplified by Impulse-era John Coltrane.

The band’s first album featured only one original song, but Timmins came into his own as a writer by the time of Trinity Sessions, and the creative partnership he and his sister forged remains a defining feature of Cowboy Junkies.

Timmins said he writes the way other singer-songwriters write—just him and his guitar working through his thoughts. But, instead of singing the songs himself, he hands them over to Margo, who animates the work with her signature smoky elegance. The duo has worked to overcome whatever obstacles that might arise from this arrangement  — pronouns not being the least of them.

“If I’m writing something and thinking ‘Can Margo sing this?’, I’m already editing myself, and there’s no point to that,” Timmins said. “I just write and hand the songs to Margo and she figures out a way into them.”

The Cowboy Junkies today. Photo: Heather Pollack

And, while he draws from his own life experiences, Timmins explains that he finds the craft of writing is about transforming his stories into experiences others can connect with. And the really good songs inevitably find a way to grow.  “The fun thing about the old songs is how lyrics mean different things at different times,” he said. “It’s always about the emotional impact of something. If a song is properly written, it’s never really about a specific event, but instead is about looking at how people can relate to this or how it can feel like something that happens to everyone.”

The band’s albums do often feel like novellas, a succession of pieces meant to be appreciated together. Such Ferocious Beauty from 2023 and Ghosts from 2020, for example, are shaped by songs that reflect on aging and the loss of parents, as the Timmins siblings experienced those transitions themselves.

Over the years, though, tunes such as “Common Disaster,” “’Cause Cheap is How I Feel,” “Anniversary Song,” and “Sun Comes Up It’s Tuesday Morning” have stood out as standalone gems. That said, it is not “hits” that bolster this band’s longevity. What keeps listeners hooked on this band is its album catalog, rife with songs that encourage deep, penetrating dives.

Another strength that makes it possible for this band to survive and thrive for so long — the premium it places on its live shows.

For much of the Cowboy Junkies’ existence, multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bird has been part of the core quartet on stage, helping to amplify and flesh out the band’s live sound. Both Michael and Margo Timmins bring unconventional, stylized approaches to performing. Michael remains seated throughout a show; he creates sheets of sound for the lyrics to land on, rather than the usual punctuation supplied by instrumentalists. Margo alternates between standing, walking around the stage, and sitting on a stool as she works her way through songs, concentrating on highlighting their subtle twists and turns.

Timmins believes that live music should be something to “experience” — not just something to listen to. “The best nights are when there’s a transfer of energy between the band and the audience,” Timmins said. “Those are the nights when everyone walks out happy.”

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.