CD Review: The Jayhawks

When the Jayhawks eased into the public consciousness with 1989’s
Blue Earth, their sound was so timeless it was like hearing
their 10th album instead of their second — and little wonder. The
Jayhawks forged their rootsy Americana pop sound from Bob Dylan’s folk
authenticity, Gram Parsons’ country, Neil Young’s rough-hewn guitar
rock and the Everly Brothers’ angelic harmonies. They’d only begun, and
the Jayhawks seemed ready to be fitted for their Hall of Fame induction
tuxes. Sadly, tensions within the band and apathy within the industry
sealed the Jayhawks’ fate; Mark Olson’s 1995 departure, Gary Louris’
reconfiguring the band in his own dark image and the lack of
breakthrough success were all steps toward an inevitable end.

So Music From the North Country, the Jayhawks’ new
career-spanning compilation, could have been viewed as a beautiful
epitaph for an incredibly undervalued American band. But the 2008
reunion of Louris and Olson for the duo’s Ready for the Flood album led to a one-off Jayhawks appearance at a Spanish festival that
resulted in a few select Jayhawks dates in the U.S. this year. So
North Country represents a possible new beginning rather than an
unfortunate and premature end. North Country comes in two
incarnations: as a single-disc, 20-track overview of the band’s history
and a three-disc deluxe package featuring a second disc of rarities
(including “Falling Star,” from the band’s self-released debut, known
as The Bunkhouse Album), B-sides, live tracks and demos, and a
DVD containing six music videos and the electronic press kits for
1992’s Hollywood Town Hall and 1997’s Sound of Lies. For
the uninitiated, the compilation is a great sampling of the Jayhawks’
impressive catalog, but for fans, the second disc is a treasure trove
of largely unreleased nuggets, from the raw demos to the European
B-sides for 1995’s “Bad Time.” The DVD is similarly stocked with visual
gems. The only thing that would make Music From the North
Country better is if the Jayhawks used its release to announce a
new studio album.