Cowboy Junkies

COWBOY JUNKIES

@ The Stiefel Theatre

Salina, KS

© Lydia Lowe 4/20/2012

Album photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Cowboy Junkies . . . The Cowboy Junkies have been around for over 20 years and hail from Canada.  The music this band sings can best be described as "blues fusion".  It's heavy on the blues but also incorporates rock, soul, jazz, country, you name it.  This music is about the human condition; so it's up, it's down, and solidly there, like life.

This group didn't draw much of crowd, which is to bad.  The audience that did show up was an enthusiastic one, however.  I think if this band had played in a festival setting, there would have been more of a crowd.  Walking by and hearing their music would make anyone pause, stop, take a closer listen, and finally pull up a bench to sit down and enjoy the show. 

I enjoyed "Renmin Park" which had a Chinese influence to it.  One of the band members lived in China in out of the way places for about three months and absorbed the culture first hand.  He brought back what he'd heard and this song was the result.  It's very different but as you listen to it, it finds a place within you like it's always been there, waiting.  "Sweet Jane" will have your toes tapping.  I think everyone in the place was rocking out to this one.  Another one that I liked was "A Common Disaster" which seemed like a good driving down the road song.  The group played songs from all their CD's, but featured the most songs from their newest CD, The Nomad Series. 

Check out their website (included in the links section of this blog).  They have over 200 songs that have never made it to an album that you can download and enjoy, as well as other information about the band.