A Preshow Interview with Gary Louris of the Jayhawks/Cain’s Ballroom-Tulsa, OK

THE JAYHAWKS LAND AT TULSA’S CAIN’S BALLROOM NOV. 15

A conversation with band member Gary Louris 

by Julie Watson

Tulsa, Okla. – I recently caught up by phone with Jayhawk Gary Louris as he sat in Milwaukee, a stop on the band’s tour in support of their new CD Mockingbird Time, their first release in many years that features both founding members, Mark Olson and Louris, along with most of the “classic” band line up. This much anticipated tour arrives at the Cain’s Tuesday, and, trust me on this, you don’t want to miss it.

Trapped under a dreary Midwestern sky, Louris was looking forward to heading south. “I’d just like something dry and a little warmer. It’s wet and windy here,” he mused with an accent that betrays his Minnesota roots. “I’m actually really excited to come to Oklahoma…I want to get down somewhere I haven’t been in a while. There’s such cool musical history from Tulsa that I was into like Shelter Records, Leon Russell and Dwight Twilley.”

The Jayhawks emerged from Minneapolis in the mid 1980s with a sound that was often labeled “alternative” as it didn’t neatly fit into either the “country” or “rock” category. Louris wasn’t actually in the band for the first two weeks of its existence, and the group already had its name by the time he joined. 

That name “was a nod to The Hawks,” Louris notes, referring to the band formed by Huntsville, Arkansas native Ronnie Hawkins that included fellow Arkansan Levon Helm and eventually morphed into The Band, backing Bob Dylan in the mid 1960s and later recording their own material. “The Jayhawks were and still are huge fans of Bob Dylan and especially The Band. We see them as a role model…The Hawks became the Band and influenced the Jayhawks.”

Although early Jayhawks’ albums garnered critical praise, it was the release of Hollywood Town Hall (“Waiting for the Sun”,“Wichita”) in 1992 and Tomorrow the Green Grass (“Blue”) in 1995 that catapulted the band to national prominence. Despite this success, the band struggled with the frustrations often inherent with major label record deals, and in 1995, Olson abruptly and unexpectedly left the band to pursue a solo career. Louris went on to lead the now Olson-less band, turning out a number of well-received albums and moving away from the band’s “traditional” sound that had featured Olson and Louris’ harmonies and combined traditional folk, rock and country influences.

The Jayhawks’ “classic” line up will be in town for Tuesday’s show, with Louris, Olson, Marc Perlman, Tim O’Reagan and Karen Grotberg, reunited once again. After many years apart, with band members pursuing their own projects, working together again as a band hasn’t been a completely smooth transition. “It’s a work in progress.” Louris commented. “It’s not always easy, but it’s rewarding.”

“Everybody’s a strong personality, and as we’ve gotten more ‘mature’, let me put it that way,” Louris laughs, “we have strong opinions all of us. Mark has been off doing his own thing, running his own show the way he likes for quite a while and I’ve been kind of leading the show for the Jayhawks without him and got used to certain things about that. But I’ve also missed his presence, and I think he missed the band..but we’ve all been through 15 years of different things and they’ve made us better in certain ways and in other ways, we have to learn to be a team and to be a band again and to work together and to compromise. It’s kind of like a marriage or a family…We laugh a lot, we have a great time, and there’s a tension and there’s a push and pull, and I think that’s what usually makes for a good band.”

Tickets are still available for the November 15 show at the Cain’s. See www.cainsballroom.com for more information.

-with permission from The Current