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Rock & Roots Artist: The Jayhawks album – ‘Paging Mr. Proust'

By Ross Raihala | rraihala@pioneerpress.com
February 4, 2016

The band recorded the record last fall in Portland, Ore., with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, the Decemberists). Another member of R.E.M., Mike Mills, adds his vocals to the song “Leaving The Monsters Behind.”

“We worked harder in pre-production than any previous Jayhawks record,” Gary Louris said in a news release. He demoed most of the songs in his home studio before “extensive workshopping” with the band, who then went on to record them in Martine’s studio.

From 2008 to 2012, the Jayhawks toured and recorded with founding member Mark Olson back in the fold. Olson first left the Jayhawks in 1995, just as the alt-country band was building a national audience. The current Jayhawks lineup is the nearly the same one that made 1997’s “Sound of Lies” and 2000’s “Smile” and includes Louris on vocals and guitar, Marc Perlman (bass), Karen Grotberg (keyboards, vocals) and Tim O’Reagan (drums, vocals).

The Jayhawks opened the year with a show at First Avenue, where they played several of the new songs with the help of the latest addition to the band, John Jackson, on guitar, mandolin and fiddle. He replaces guitarist Kraig Johnson, who is now working with the reunited Run Westy Run. The band has announced a handful of out-of-state tour dates for May, and according to a Facebook post, “we’re committed to touring as much as possible in 2016.” Louris is booked to play St. Paul’s Turf Club on Saturday night with his new side project, Au Pair.