The Trinity Session
The Trinity Session is the second studio album by Canadian band Cowboy Junkies. It was released on November 15, 1988 (Latent Recordings in Canada; RCA worldwide) and runs 52 minutes and 36 seconds. The music was recorded on November 27, 1987, inside Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity, with the band circled around a single microphone to capture a live, intimate sound. Peter Moore produced the album.
The record blends original songs with spare covers. Notably, the Junkies’ version of Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” draws on the live 1969/1974 rendition rather than the studio version. “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)” combines a new Cowboy Junkies tune with the standard “Blue Moon.” The band aimed for a natural, one-mic, live-in-the-church feel, balancing Margo Timmins’ vocals against guitars and drums.
Some parts were added after the initial session, and the group even briefly pretended to be the Timmins Family Singers to persuade church officials to permit the recording. The session began in the morning of November 27, 1987, and, after solving acoustic challenges by layering songs, the final track “Misguided Angel” was completed in a single take with extra time purchased for a bit longer recording.
The Trinity Session has been widely acclaimed. It was later performed in full in 2007 at All Tomorrow’s Parties’ Don’t Look Back festival, and the band also released Trinity Revisited, a new version with guest artists to mark the album’s 20th anniversary. The album’s influence and reception include: the All Time Top 1000 Albums list (ranked 999, 2000), Pitchfork listing it as the 42nd best album of the 1980s (2002), and Bob Mersereau’s Top 100 Canadian Albums placing it at No. 62 (2007). In 2015, The Trinity Session won the Polaris Heritage Prize in the 1980s category, recognizing it as a classic Canadian album from before the Polaris Prize era.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 16:18 (CET).