Birds of a feather, together again
Oh, to hear those soaring harmonies again.
The long-awaited reunion of Mark Olson and Gary Louris, co-founders of the seminal country-rock band The Jayhawks, takes flight Friday when the two musicians share the stage for the first time in 10 years at the Maintenance Shop in Ames. For longtime fans, Friday’s sold-out performance, the first of many on this informal monthlong acoustic tour, promises to recapture the band’s heyday of the early ‘90s with songs like “Waiting for the Sun,” “Sister Cry” and “Blue.” But for Olson, who is respectfully reticent about the hype surrounding his rejoining the band, these shows are about reconnecting with a kindred spirit.
“I’ve been writing songs so I thought, ‘Hell, why not see if Gary wants to do some of these with me,’” Olson said last week while rehearsing in St. Paul, Minn. with Louris, drummer Ray Woods and multi-instrumentalist Michael “Razz” Russell in St. Paul, Minn. “Gary was into it for various reasons, and I’m glad he wants to do it. It seems like a good thing. I think we both miss singing with each other, and that’s the bottom line.”
It was 20 years ago this month when Olson and Louris launched The Jayhawks from Minneapolis’ underground music scene. Their roots-rock sound, first captured on 1989’s “Blue Earth” quickly evolved into a hybrid of country, rock and pop that garnered them critical acclaim and found them teetering on the brink of mainstream success with 1992’s “Hollywood Town Hall” and 1995’s “Tomorrow the Green Grass.” But after 10 years, Olson left the band to concentrate on making music with his wife, Victoria Williams, in The Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers, which released seven albums and toured Europe. Louris continued to lead The Jayhawks as the band’s principal songwriter, singer and guitarist on three albums.
“When I left The Jayhawks I was physically and mentally burned out on it,” Olson admitted. “I had just bought my first house and it needed a lot of work, and I didn’t want to be in a band 10 years down the road. For whatever reason, the dynamics of a band didn’t appeal to me, and I wanted to play other instruments. I was a little tired of banging on an acoustic guitar.”
Olson, who will play bass on the upcoming tour, said he is eager to return to the road with Louris. “I’ve got my fire back,” he said.
Part of that enthusiasm is not only the promise of revisiting The Jayhawk’s classic tunes, but also performing unreleased songs from a demo the band cut before it made “Hollywood Town Hall.”
“There are a lot of songs we recorded on that demo, so we’re going to bust some of those out,” Olson said, adding that the group will add a few covers to the set list, too. “With all the material we have, I think we’ll play a long time.”
These days, The Jayhawks are widely considered to be pioneers of the alt-country movement. But to paint them into one musical category is shortsighted. As the liner notes on “Tomorrow the Green Grass” suggest, their songs “act like country-tinged rock and roll with an intellectual attitude and shit-kicking ambiance, but they’re smarter than they act.”
“I don’t mind it,” Olson said of the alt-country tag. “If it directs people to the music that’s fine. There are a lot of musicians, and the ones that stick it out they eventually get a label. It goes with the territory.”
Depending on the success of their reunion tour, Olson isn’t ruling out a permanent reunion with his former band mates, adding he would like to record with them again. But first, he said, he wants to rekindle his partnership with Louris.
“I’m open to it and I think he’s open to it,” Olson said. “I think the first step is doing some shows, and then we’ll see where the chips fall. I left the band 10 years ago and now I’m coming back saying, ‘I want to do things again.’ So I think they need a period of adjustment.”
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Es gibt ein Ziel, aber keinen Weg; was wir Weg nennen, ist Zögern. (Kafka)