Jayhawks Live Yet Again

I haven't talked about the reissue of their first album yet, which I really should get around to. In the meantime, here they are playing tracks from that album and others last week...

My Music Year #7

This year has been a big year for Jayhawks fans and not just for the release of a retrospective and rarities disc this summer. We were also treated to new material from Gary Louris and Mark Olson, the driving forces of the early period of The Jayhawks. Olson left the band in 1995 but over the past couple years the two have performed together and recorded Ready For the Flood. It's not a Jayhawks record but there are still many pleasures to be had.

Much of the album is the two men together - their voices (Louris up high and Olson on the bottom) and their acoustic guitars. They blend so well together that you can just get wrapped up in the sound. That's helped, of course, by a keen sense of melody and the construction of the songs. I don't think any of the songs will strike a person as one of the best they've ever heard but they are all candidates to get stuck in your head. There are subtleties to the music as well and other instruments (notably organ, harmonica, and electric guitar) contribute to the whole. It's a cohesive album in the best sense and one of my favorites of the year. I hope they keep making music together.

Project Collection

The history of this blog and even my life is littered with ideas and projects that I don't follow through on, yet I keep coming up with new ones. This year the big ones have included recording an EP (not one note), reading Infinite Summer (I lasted less than 50 pages), writing a biography of The Jayhawks (not one word written), blogging about every song by The Jayhawks (I've covered 4 in 2 months), reading the entire works of Charles Dickens (not one word read), and writing about every issue of Astro City (nope). Still, I don't want to give up on these ideas or at least on the idea of ideas in general. I'd like to follow through on a project or two. I realize I'm setting myself up for failure with all the school work I have in college this semester and the general craziness of life, but here are the blog projects I plan on doing over the next few months...

* A series of posts on the best of the decade in books, music, movies, TV, comics, and whatever else I come up with

* A resumption of writing about The Jayhawks songs

* Reviews of all the new music I've bought this year, in chronological order

It's ambitious, especially for someone with my track record, but I feel like I have to do it. What have I got to lose?

Nothing Left To Borrow

Let's dive back into the Jayhawks project with a look at one of the lesser-known songs from Tomorrow the Green Grass (released in 1995)...

"Nothing Left to Borrow" is built on a relatively subdued but still interesting riff by Gary Louris on electric guitar, which is then supported by a nice bouncing bass line and a lot of cymbal work on the drumkit. It lifts off during the chorus with a short piano line and when Mark Olson joins Louris in harmony (Louris sings lead on this one). The song is not flashy and a little bit melnacholy but it sticks in the head.

"Then just stick around..."

Live Jayhawks

Save It For a Rainy Day

The Jayhawks deal in dichotomies and dualities. They have always enjoyed critical success but it never really translated to commerical success. Their sound was built on the high/low harmonies of Gary Louris and Mark Olson and the marriage of country and rock and folk and more. They also know how to weld a sad song with a beautiful sing-along melody, which is the case with "Save It For a Rainy Day" from their swan song, 2003's Rainy Day Music.

It's a mostly acoustic song and starts with a little descending then reascending guitar line and then the words hit...

"Pretty little hairdo don't do what it used to

Can't describe the living

All the miles that you've been through"

Not the happiest of tunes but then we get a sweet walking baseline from Marc Perlman and a bouncing drumbeat. And that's all before we get to "Don't look so sad, Marina, there's another part to play" with lilting harmonies hitting the "so sad." Drummer Tim O'Reagan takes the lower notes in the hamony that were once Olson's and the result still sounds like the Jayhawks.

A nice little harmonica solo and a little electric guitar solo from Louris and then we're back to that beautiful chorus. Marina is supposed to "save it for a rainy day" and I hope she does.

Big Star

In the mid-90s, The Jayhawks were at a crossroads. Mark Olson had left the band and while the band was a critical success, commercial success hadn't materialized. Gary Louris had to decide whether to continue on with the band or if they should break up. Obviously, they stayed together and gave us 1997's Sound of Lies, an album that is one of the most underrated of the 90s if not of all time.

The first (and only?) single was "Big Star." Louris talks with self-deprecation and a bit of pain about how that success hasn't yet materialized...

"Yeah I'm flat busted

Wild-eyed and free

Couldn't get arrested if I tried

A has-been at a mere thirty-five"

Ouch.

The song is a rocker, though it does slow down in the middle when Louris sings "But it's so hard/So hard/So hard getting by" and again at the end for the last chorus, "I'm gonna be a Big Star someday." It has some nice plaintive harmonies on the main verses and a great guitar solo in the middle (remind me to talk at some point about Louris as a guitar player). But again, it's the lyrics that really make this song and he gets in some good lines throughout...

"Seems it's high noon and I ain't got no gun"

"I'm perfecting the finest art of wasting hours"

The 4:25 of this particular song is anything but a waste.

Waiting For the Sun

Let's start with the song that introduced me to The Jayhawks, the first song on Hollywood Town Hall, "Waiting For the Sun."

It starts with a piano plunk and then the electric guitar comes in. A chug-a-lug beat with the bass running in between. The piano and guitar work with each other. Then in comes a high voice, "I was waiting for the sun..." and we're off.

For the first 5 or 6 years of my Jayhawks fandom, I didn't which voice was Gary Louris and which was Mark Olson. It wasn't until my first Golden Smog record that I knew the high voice was Gary's and the lower voice coming into harmonize was Mark's.

"It was not lost on me."

We get a nice guitar solo and then the guitar comes back as the song works itself to a conclusion. It's a guitar that speaks to me, that works within the context of the song and also has a yearning to it.

"I never made amends for the sake of no else."

The song perfectly encapsulates what you're going to get from the album - great music with a tinge of sadness, harmony mixed with yearning. Let's go "walkin' on down the road," indeed.

The Jayhawks

I'm not sure when I first heard The Jayhawks. It seems likely that WXRT in Chicago would have played "Waiting For The Sun" when it first came out and that was my first exposure to the band. It also seems likely that I read a positive review of Hollywood Town Hall in Rolling Stone, since that was where I did most of my music reading back in 1992. Whatever the case, I bought that album and it quickly became a favorite. They were at the vanguard of "alternative country," though I'm still not sure what that means (and it wasn't anything they claimed themselves). They had guitars, both acoustic and electric, and harmonies. Maybe their songs sounded country and maybe not but I was buying the music.

Their next album was 1995's Tomorrow the Green Grass and I was all over it when it came out. More great music. And then, word came that Mark Olson had left the band. Well, that was the end of The Jayhawks. Or rather, it was for me. Sound of Lies came out in 1997 and I didn't buy it.

Meanwhile, I become a fan of Golden Smog, for which Gary Louris is a main songwriter and contributor. I like his stuff quite a bit and think that maybe I was hasty in my dismissal of The Jayhawks as uninteresting with only him at the helm. Still, I do nothing.

Cut to 2000 and I'm listening to WXRT. I hear a new song by The Jayhawks and it sounds great. On the strength of "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," I pick up their new album Smile. I am once again and ongoing fan of the band (I had still listened to the previous two albums over the years, no doubt about it).

At some point I find a used copy of Sound of Lies and pick it up. I wonder how I could have let it pass me by all those years ago. It's a brilliant record and one of the most underrated of the 90s, hands down.

When 2003's Rainy Day Music rolls around, I pick it up the day it comes out and love it. Turns out it's their swan song and I am terribly disappointed. The members continue to put out music, like drummer Tim O'Reagan's gorgeous solo album in 2006. Louris pops up here and there, notably on another Golden Smog record and then his solo debut Vagabonds last year. Early in 2009, Olson and Louris reteam and give us Ready For the Flood. It's not a Jayhawks record but it doesn't matter - they sound great together.

Still, that's not the end of the story. Today saw the release of a Jayhawks anthology, Music From the North Country. I, of course, bought the deluxe edition with a second disc of rarities and a DVD (however, it is still snaking its way to me through the mail). I can't wait to dig in. There are also plans for reissues of all their albums (and you know, I never did get around to buying their debut, Blue Earth; a fact I will have to remedy).

In celebration, I am going to be taking a look at their catalogue over the next few months. I plan to cover not only the songs from the albums but also take a look at the side projects and solo albums as well. It will not be complete by any means; for starters, I've never picked up any of Olson's solo records. But I'm going to do the best I can two or three times a week to celebrate a band I wholeheartedly love. Please come along for the ride.