The Jayhawks

Gary Louris and Mark Olson formed The Jayhawks in the ’80s, when it still took some imagination to be a Gram Parsons fan. You can hear the band’s excitement at discovering country music on last year’s Lost Highway reissue of its long-lost debut,The Jayhawks (better known as The Bunkhouse Album, after the tiny label that released it in 1986). Though the band officially separated in 2005, it got back together in 2009 to play Spain’s Primavera Sound Festival, and it has been sporadically touring ever since. The 2011 comeback record,Mockingbird Time, is a guiltily pleasurable yet overwhelmingly sensitive continuation of their past work. Mockingbird Time is the kind of album you’ll keep listening to without necessarily noticing it.

Updated 01/18/2012