LOOKBACK MACHiNE: the JAYHAWKS

ROUTES & BRANCHES

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

July 24, 2024

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

For years here at R&B HQ, we've restricted our attentions to brand new stuff. We review new albums. We feature only new songs on our Spotify ROUTES-casts. We're 100% dedicated to music discovery. But if you crawl back far enough in our archives you'll find that there was a time during R&B: the Radio Days when we'd devote fair time to non-new material as well, stuff from years passed that we love and want to share. 

Going forward, and in the spirit of our newly expanded blog, it's our ambitious plan to devote Wednesdays to this great wealth of the non-new. It's still about music discovery, we're just hoping to help readers discover older music that might have been overlooked or underappreciated. This will take a couple different forms. 

For this first journey in our Lookback Machine, we're selecting our thirty favorite songs from the Jayhawks, one of the sturdiest roots in our musical tree. Fronted initially by Gary Louris and Mark Olson, then solely by Louris when Olson departed following Tomorrow, the Jayhawks hailed from Minneapolis. With Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass, the band carved their name among the seminal acts in the alt.country movement. Louris and co. took more of a pop turn following Olson's withdrawal, staking a claim at the dawn of the 2000s with Smile and Rainy Day Music. The core lineup of Louris, Tim O'Regan, Marc Perlman, and Karen Grotberg persisted through hiatuses, the momentary return of Mark Olson for Mockingbird Time, and outside projects, touring together as recently as Spring of 2024, with plans to return to the stage this Summer and Fall. Arguably as much as any other artist, Gary Louris and the Jayhawks have served to bridge the territory between roots and pop music. 

We've assembled a Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure. At R&B, we speak in terms of favorites rather than the best. We recognize that readers have their own favorites, and who are we to tell you you're wrong? Feel free to use the comment option to add your own favorites. Ours are ordered in terms of appearance date: 

the JAYHAWKS: thirty favorites

- "Falling Star" The Jayhawks (aka Bunkhouse Album)  (Bunkhouse, 86)

- "Sioux City" Blue Earth  (Twin/Tone, 89)

- "Waiting For the Sun" Hollywood Town Hall  (American, 92)

- "Crowded In the Wings" Hollywood Town Hall

- "Take Me With You (When You Go)" Hollywood Town Hall

- "Settled Down Like Rain" Hollywood Town Hall

- "Blue" Tomorrow the Green Grass  (American, 95)

- "I'd Run Away" Tomorrow the Green Grass

- "Won't Be Coming Home (demo)" Tomorrow the Green Grass (Legacy Edition)

- "Stick In the Mud" Sound Of Lies  (American, 97)

- "Dying On the Vine" Sound Of Lies

- "Smile" Smile  (American, 00)

- "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" Smile

- "What Led Me To This Town" Smile

- "A Break In the Clouds" Smile

- "Somewhere In Ohio" Smile

- "Queen Of the World" Smile

- "Stumbling Through the Dark" Rainy Day Music  (American, 03)

- "Tailspin" Rainy Day Music

- "All the Right Reasons" Rainy Day Music

- "Save It For a Rainy Day" Rainy Day Music

- "Come To the River" Rainy Day Music

- "Closer To Your Side" Mockingbird Time  (Rounder, 11)

- "She Walks In So Many Ways" Mockingbird Time

- "Pouring Rain At Dawn" Mockingbird Time

- "Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces" Paging Mr Proust  (SHAM, 13)

- "Devil Is In Her Eyes" Paging Mr Proust

- "Dust Of Long Dead Stars" Paging Mr Proust 

- "Everybody Knows" Back Roads & Abandoned Motels  (Legacy, 18)

- "This Forgotten Town" XOXO  (SHAM, 20)

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To enjoy any Spotify ROUTES-cast, just open Spotify and search for "routesandbranches" to access this most recent playlist, as well as many others from past months.  Or click here for a preview: