MICHAEL TIMMINS

guitarist with folk-rock group the Cowboys Junkies

“I don’t really remember the first album that I bought because my older brother John was a huge record collector, so my earliest experiences are of listening to his albums. But I do remember some very early connections to records. My mother gave me the single, ‘Our House,’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young from ‘Deja Vu,’ and that was really important to me. Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’ was also a really big record in my life. The year that album came out I had broken my leg, so my brother had to drive me to school every day and he used to play that in the car all the time. It was kind of a strange album to listen to constantly when you’re 12 years old.

“And I also remember getting the Beatles’ ‘White Album’ for Christmas one year and being really attached to all the little ditty-songs like ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ and ‘Piggies’ because they were kind of like children’s rhymes. And I also scribbled all over the cover because it was such a nice white canvas, drawing pictures of long-haired people with guitars. I think I still have that copy of that album.”