From The Desk Of The Jayhawks’ Mark Olson: Books

Gary Louris and Mark Olson left Jayhawks fans in a lurch when they parted ways rather abruptly in 1995. Turns out Olson had tired of all the obligations and trappings that came with the Minneapolis-spawned group’s hard-won success. So he escaped to the Mojave Desert to ply a rootsier, salt-of-the-earth trade with the help of wife Victoria Williams. Ah, but time—and perhaps a little fiscal motivation—has a way of smoothing over the rough patches in many productive creative partnerships. (Unless you’re Bob Mould and Grant Hart.) And 15 years later, the Jayhawks have returned to us more-or-less fully intact. For how long, no one really knows, but they just did a string of shows to back the enhanced reissues of 1992’s Hollywood Town Hall and 1995’s Tomorrow The Green Grass (American/Legacy). With their sugary (if unrefined) harmonies, rugged intelligence and casual accessibility, the albums are to the alt-country movement what One Of These Nights and Hotel California were to ’70s SoCal country rock—even if the comparably modest sales figures may not indicate as much. Louris and Olson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with Louris.

Olson: In Santa Monica, Calif., lived my grandmother. She worked as a secretary for 40 years at the Veterans Administration in West Los Angeles. When she was young, she put to memory poems and a substantial amount of book-read material that she could pull out and present to her family for argument’s sake. All this reading and exercising of her mind took place somewhere near Yankton, S.D., on a farm under the shade of a elm tree. She handed me books. Try to find Earth Abides, the story of a man who comes back from a hiking trip to find out that everyone has died of some illness and how things proceed into the future. Another favorite is “Guests Of The Nation,” a short story of friendship, dignity and orders from above. Video after the jump.