One of the seminal alternative country bands, the Jayhawks began in the mid-1980s in the white-hot Minneapolis music scene. The band was initially defined by the tight harmonies of its two lead singers, Mark Olson and Gary Louris, but Olson left in 1995 after the band’s first two major-label albums–Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass–brought them nothing but debt. Simultaneously, Louris was coming into his own as a singer and songwriter, and the two had begun to squabble over whose voice would be primary in the band.

The band didn’t break up after Olson’s departure, however, and the next three Jayhawks records featured Louris as the primary singer/songwriter (in a much less countrified mode), though all of them also featured songs written and sung by drummer Tim O'Reagan, who had joined the band just after the release of Tomorrow. In fact, Olson notwithstanding, the band’s line-up of Louris, O'Reagan, and founding bassist Marc Perlman would remain remarkably stable for the next two decades, with keyboardist Karen Grotberg (who had joined in 1992) appearing on most of the band’s records during that time, as well.

Frustrated by the band’s lack of commercial success, Louris broke up the Jayhawks after 2003’s Rainy Day Music and briefly moved to Spain. After releasing an album with Olson in 2009, the two of them reconvened the Jayhawks for 2011’s Mockingbird Time, but the comeback was not well-received, and the recording and touring process was even more acrimonious than it had been in the late ‘90s. Olson left again, and after going to rehab for alcohol and opiate addiction, Louris moved ahead with the Jayhawks as they had been in the late '90s.

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