Cowboy Junkies will showcase ‘Such Ferocious Beauty’ at Iowa City performance

Loss has inspired some amazing albums. The deaths of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and two crew members prompted Neil Young to craft 1975's "Tonight's the Night." After cancer claimed drummer Billy Conway in 2021, underrated singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault responded with the terrific album “The Universal Fire.”

“Such Ferocious Beauty” was crafted during the last days of John Timmins, the father of The Cowboy Junkies vocalist Margo Timmins, guitarist Michael Timmins and drummer Peter Timmins.

The songs aren't particularly sad. "They shouldn't be since our father lived into his '90s and had a wonderful life," Margo Timmins said while calling from her suburban Toronto home. The group will perform in Iowa City on Friday at the Englert Theatre. "He was married his whole life to the woman he loved and he never experienced anything awful like the death of one of his children. He had it pretty good."

The songs from "Such Ferocious Beauty" are deeper than typical tunes inspired by loss, which are often angry or confused. There’s a certain calmness and even yes, beauty, mixed in with the sadness.

"We were writing the new songs while my dad was still alive," Timmins said. "We wrote them during the COVID period, which was a strange time for everyone."

The album would have been very different without lockdown. "We had to take care of dad," Timmins said. "We couldn't get extra help. So we had to wash him and clean. It was hard at the time, but I look back and see it as a gift. If the world was normal, we would have hired people to care for him and missed out on that intimacy. Instead we spent a lot of time with him."

It was difficult for Timmins to watch their father, an accomplished pilot and doting family man lose his memory due to dementia. Timmins detailed a lovely story about her father relegated to Christmas Eve duty flying over the Lawrence River in Quebec with his wife, Barbara.

"They were young and he asked his boss if his new bride could be with him on the flight," Timmins said. "It was such a wonderful story about two young lovers just starting out. I talked to my dad about it toward the end of his life and he didn't remember it at all. It was just so sad."

The experience inspired songs such as "What I Lost." "I would tell my dad things and there was such a look of fear on his face," Timmins said.

The Cowboy Junkies will showcase "What I Lost" and much of "Such Ferocious Beauty" Friday at the Englert Theatre. However, the catchy "Mike Tyson (Here It Comes)," which is catchy and compelling and includes the famous quote from the iconic heavyweight champion "Every man has a plan, until he's punched in the mouth," will not be performed.

"That's such a hard song to play," Timmins said. "I don't know if we can do it."

Delivering "Mike Tyson (Here It Comes)" is nothing compared to somehow surviving nearly 40-years with the same lineup. The Timmins siblings and bassist, Alan Anton, a close friend of Michael Timmins since kindergarten, have been the Cowboy Junkies since forming in Toronto in 1986.

Such brotherly acts as the Kinks, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Oasis had about as many volatile experiences as hits.

"We could always have another drummer or bassist and it would sound fine but it wouldn't be the same as the four of us," Timmins said. "After all of these many years we truly enjoy each other and the wonderment of what we do together. We like our music probably more than anybody else. Being in this band is like a marriage."

The fans return for such well-crafted originals as "Black Eyed Man," "Where are You Tonight" and "Misguided Angel." And then there are the group’s unique covers, Patsy Cline’s "Walking After Midnight," Neil Young's "Don’t Let It Bring You Down" and their sublime version of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane.”

"I can’t express how much we enjoy doing this even after all of these years," Timmins said. "I can’t imagine what else I would do."