Gary Louris and Mark Olson perform at Americana Music fest

Festivus

More of Louris meeting Olson

As a general rule, in latter-day Jayhawks lineage Mark Olson has been the one playing stripped down, loose-limbed shows, while Gary Louris has hewed closer to pop hooks and full-band polish. And they’ve each done it without the other. But recently, they’ve dipped their toes into writing and playing together, and their new part-acoustic, part-ragged folk-rock duo album, Ready for the Flood, will soon be out overseas. Which means European audiences are getting a tour promoting the new album, while we have slim pickings on this side of the pond. (That will be remedied in January 2009 when the album releases stateside. In the meantime, read Paste's review of Ready for the Flood.)

More of Louris meeting Olson

One of those choice crumbs was a Louris/Olson showcase on the final night of the Americana Music Festival in Nashville. They played 12 songs—all they had time for, sandwiched as they were between Buddy Miller and Chuck Mead in the packed schedule—to a capacity crowd at the Mercy Lounge.

When Olson and Louris took the stage with nothing but their acoustic guitars and Louris’ harp, it made for a humbler presentation than Miller’s guttural honky-tonk blues, but a no less noteworthy one: the reunion of two distinctive singers and songwriters whose voices intertwine like strong, bristly rope.

They were a study in contrasts. Louris—the more sleekly dressed of the two—cocooned himself in stationary, closed-eyed intensity; Olson—endearingly rumpled—searched the crowd with his eyes. Louris took most of the higher harmonies and the lead licks; Olson strummed rhythm and settled into the lower vocal parts with his warm braying.

There was no effort to leave what they’d done in the past behind. But they didn’t just rehash it either. A good half of the set—including the opening song, “Over My Shoulder,” and the closing one, “Miss Williams’ Guitar”—came from the two major label albums the Jayhawks did with Olson still in the fold: Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass. The rest—like the moody, swaying “Bicycle”—were foretastes of co-writes on the new album.

More of Louris meeting Olson

Olson and Louris didn’t talk much between songs, except when they fumbled for the title and opening chords to a new one (“Saturday Morning on Sunday Street”) and noted that they’d written another (“Turn Your Pretty Name Around”) back in 1990, but only recently dusted it off. Their tentativeness with each other diminished a bit with each passing song. By the end, they were stepping close together to jam once or twice.

Something did happen in the space of 12 songs, but it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as a phoenix rising from the ashes of a once-dead partnership. It was more like tender, green shoots sprouting in the wake of a brush fire—reassurance that something new can grow there after all.