The Jayhawks

The Jayhawks

[Lost Highway]

In 1986 a young band from Minnesota released its self-titled first album, pressing only 2,000 vinyl copies on a small local label called Bunkhouse Records. The Jayhawks went on to find a national audience for their peculiarly Midwestern blend of rock and country, highlighted by the harmonic and creative interplay between singer-songwriters Mark Olson and Gary Louris. As the group’s influence grew and its sound evolved (especially after Olson’s 1995 defection), fans longed to get their hands on The Jayhawks—the out-of-print collector’s item typically referred to as “The Bunkhouse Tapes.” Interest in the band has been revitalized recently by the reunion of Olson and Louris, first as an acoustic duo and lately fronting the Jayhawks once again. Last year’s compilation Music From the North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology served to cement the stature of the band’s recorded legacy in the public mind, clearing the way at last for this reissue of The Jayhawks. Given the sonic avenues the group explored later on, which by the time of 2000’s Smile included slickly sophisticated pop, the Jayhawks’ debut is striking in its sheer rootsy conservatism. This is a more traditional country band than most of its fans ever heard, twanging its way through a set of 13 originals that highlights its leaders’ inchoate songwriting chops while illustrating how far they had yet to travel. For fans well aware of how drastically the group evolved during its recording career—and newly hopeful about that career’s possible continuation—The Jayhawks is a vital missing link.

–Chris Neal