The Jayhawks

The Jayhawks' founders, Mark Olson and Gary Louris, seem like reacquainted divorcees: After years of rocky independence, they finally gave up the ghost and moved back in together. The band's first retrospective is a healthy by-product of that reconciliation, with thickly harmonized Louris-Olson tunes ("Two Angels," "Waiting for the Sun") and Louris-fronted hits ("The Man Who Loved Life"). Several chapters of the story are missing (like Olson's solo work), but the collection of rugged, earnest, essentially Northern folk rock captures the band's beautiful, bleak complexity.

One headline about the Jayhawks at their prime read "What if you made a classic, and no
one cared?" The Midwest country rockers have made a few in their 23 years, to less notice
than they deserved; those discs are cherry-picked for this note-perfect set. It covers the
twangy early years with frontmen Gary Louris and Mark Olson, and the poppier later ones
with just Louris. The Jayhawks' exquisite hooks and harmonies are all plain as th... More >