artist:  Margo Timmins of the  Cowboy Junkies

songwriter:  Bob Dylan in 1963

release date:  2009 by Margo Timmins

Margo Timmins was born in 1961, and she spent most of her childhood in Montreal as one of six children of Barbara and John Timmins. She describes her mother Barbara as "a very honest person, and very confident in who she was and her emotions and her place in the world. And I think if she gave anything, that's what she gave us: the sense that you do what you do, and not to worry about it too much—a confidence, but not a confidence that we're necessarily right, but even if we're wrong, well, we remain confident. 

Her father, John Timmins, spent his professional life working in the sales and marketing divisions of several aviation companies. His passion in life, however, was music and his love of song was passed on to his children, especially his son Michael (Margo's brother) who would eventually form the band Cowboy Junkies.

As a young girl, she remembered going through her brother Michael's extensive record collection.  Some of her early favourites that influence her to this day include: Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Blonde on Blonde (1966), and Nashville Skyline (1969), by Bob Dylan, Nebraska (1982) by Bruce Springsteen, Harvest (1972) by Neil Young, and Townes Van Zandt's Flyin' Shoes (1978).

In 1977, the Timmins family moved from Montreal to Toronto. They lived in Etobicoke in the west-end of the city and Margo attended Richview Collegiate Institute in her high school years.[citation needed]

After graduating from high school, Timmins spent her evenings along with her brother Michael exploring the punk music scene in Toronto that was happening on Queen Street West. When Michael started his first band, the Hunger Project, she would hang out with the band, take the tickets, and carry the equipment. Timmins supported herself by doing clerical work for her father and performing chores around the house.

But by her mid-20s, Timmins had left the night life behind and was studying social work at university.  It was also during this time that Timmins developed her signature mane of long hair. As she tells it, "As a kid I was always mistaken for a boy. I didn't get long hair until my early 20s. That's when I discovered hair was important."

In 1985, her brother Michael recruited Margo as the lead vocalist for Cowboy Junkies even though she had never sung publicly before.  Initially Margo would not sing in front of the other band members, she would only sing in front of Michael. Eventually, Michael convinced Margo to sing in front of the other band members and they liked her performance.

Margo Timmins has said about that time, "So when he asked me I was freaked out, but I said 'Okay, so long as if I don't do a good job, you fire me.' I didn't want to hurt his music, because his music is so important to him."  It took a long time for her to get comfortable singing in front of an audience. In fact, many of the early shows had Margo singing with her back to the audience. Timmins has stated that it took her ten years to get comfortable singing in front of an audience, and she suffers from stage fright.

She lives in Toronto with her husband Graham Henderson and their son Ed.   However, she likes to spend most of her time at their 100-year-old farmhouse in Grey County, Ontario.  When Timmins is not on the road touring with Cowboy Junkies, she is home on the farm with her son Ed. Ed travels with the band on longer tours, but for shorter tours stays in Canada with his grandparents.

In 2016, she was made a member of the Order of Ontario.