Just had this in. Obviously a welcome pair of reissues especially for what's on the second CD of Tomorrow The Green Grass. However you do despair of major labels given that while these may be the first two they released on Sony, they’re not actually the first two Jayhawks albums but their third and fourth. (Everything below is from the press release except the images of The Bunkhouse Record and Blue Earth - now available on Lost Highway and Restless/Ryko).
THE JAYHAWKS
OUT JANUARY 17th – FIRST TWO CLASSIC ALBUMS EXPANDED AND REVISITED:
TOMORROW THE GREEN GRASS: LEGACY EDITION
LANDMARK 1995 ALBUM PLUS PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED MYSTERY DEMOS
HOLLYWOOD TOWN HALL
1992 ALBUM PLUS ADDED BONUS TRACKS
In the aftermath of The Jayhawks’ founding members Mark Olson and Gary Louris duo album collaboration (2009’s Ready For the Flood) and their subsequent Jayhawks reunion tour activity, interest in the seminal American roots band has been soaring. Last year’s release on Columbia/Legacy of Music From The North Country (a career-spanning double-CD anthology of The Jayhawks, supervised by Louris) came with a promise of future Jayhawks catalog projects to arrive in 2010.
That promise is fulfilled with two new releases that open up worlds of insight into the creative passion of The Jayhawks’ early years:
Hollywood Town Hall, their debut album from 1992, containing the original album’s 10 songs plus five bonus tracks, two of them previously unreleased
Tomorrow The Green Grass: Legacy Edition, the long-awaited follow-up of 1995, now a deluxe double-CD, with the original album’s 13 songs plus five bonus tracks, three of them previously unreleased, along with The Mystery Demos, a second CD featuring 18 tracks recorded by Olson and Louris in 1992, all previously unreleased, the ultimate treasure for collectors and aficionados.
Unraveling the tangled history of the Jayhawks in the first half of the ’90s is a challenge well met by producer George Drakoulias. His liner notes to Hollywood Town Hall describe initial encounters with Louris and Olson in Minneapolis, and re-live, virtually track-by-track, sessions in Los Angeles and the Twin Cities. Accompanying Drakoulias’ detailed account, producer Joe Henry’s original notes to the 1992 pressing are included in the package.
For Tomorrow The Green Grass: Legacy Edition, separate sets of liner notes were also necessary to cover the two CD’s in the package. Covering the original album and bonus tracks on CD one is respected West Coast country-rock scholar Bud Scoppa. Providing an equally astute liner notes essay for CD two’s Mystery Demos is PD Larson, a Minneapolis-based writer who wrote the revealing 2,000-word liner notes essay for last year’s Music From The North Country. Larson (a fan since witnessing the first-ever Jayhawks concert in 1985) painstakingly details the 18 tracks on this package, a representative sampling of the best of ‘The Mystery Demos’ that includes some of the Jayhawks' finest best known songs, including nascent versions used years later in various side projects.
Larson reveals that the so-called “Mystery Demos” were actually two different sessions from 1992: the first with Louris and Olson, taking place at a local studio in Minneapolis in early February 1992; and a second session eight months later in Los Angeles, under the helm of George Drakoulias. A total of 44 different song demos were first unearthed in 2002 by “some long forgotten Jayhawks insider,” of which 11 were cut by The Jayhawks during their existence. Another 11 were used for non-Jayhawks projects, leaving 22 unreleased. “With the release of this special bonus disc,” Larson concludes, “the world at large will get a chance to further share in the unadulterated quintessence that the Mystery Demos represent. Given the quality of some of the remaining unreleased Mystery Demo material – and the fact that Olson and Louris’ collaboration is ongoing – there surely are chapters of this once-mysterious story left to be written.”
The two new packages cap a high-profile year for The Jayhawks that also saw the launch of a new website in June 30th. The website has become a well-traveled portal for up-to-date news releases and touring information, message boards, links, mobile applications, album discography, photography, videos, and merchandise.
HOLLYWOOD TOWN HALL by THE JAYHAWKS
Originally issued September 1992
Selections: 1 Waiting For The Sun • 2 Crowded In The Wings • 3 Clouds • 4 Two Angels • 5 Take Me With You (When You Go) • 6 Sister Cry • 7 Settled Down Like Rain • 8 Wichita • 9 Nevada, California • 10 Martin’s Song • Bonus tracks: 11 Leave No Gold • 12 Keith And Quentin • 13 Up Above My Head • 14 Warm River (previously unreleased) • 15 Mother Trust You To Walk To The Store (previously unreleased).
TOMORROW THE GREEN GRASS: LEGACY EDITION by THE JAYHAWKS
Originally issued February 1995
CD One Tomorrow The Green Grass: 1 Blue • 2 I’d Run Away • 3 Miss Williams’ Guitar • 4 Two Hearts • 5 Real Light • 6 Over My Shoulder • 7 Bad Time • 8 See Him On The Street • 9 Nothing Left To Borrow • 10 Ann Jane • 11 Pray For Me • 12 Red’s Song • 13 Ten Little Kids • Bonus tracks: 14 Tomorrow The Green Grass • 15 You and I (Ba-Ba-Ba) (previously unreleased) • 16 Sweet Hobo Self (previously unreleased) • 17 Last Cigarette • 18 Sleep While You Can (previously unreleased)
CD Two The Mystery Demos: 1 Pray For Me • 2 Won’t Be Coming Home • 3 No Place • 4 Precious Time • 5 Poor Michael’s Boat • 6 Ranch House In Phoenix • 7 Cotton Dress • 8 She Picks The Violets • 9 Bloody Hands • 10 Up Above the River • 11 Over My Shoulder • 12 Blue From Now On (take 2) • 13 Hold Me Close • 14 Turn Your Pretty Name Around • 15 You And I (Ba-Ba-Ba) • 16 Red’s Song • 17 Nothing Left To Borrow • 18 White Shell Road. (All tracks previously unreleased)
