Despite recording one of the founding alt-country documents, the Jayhawks never really sounded especially country or punk-- not in the early 1990s and certainly not in the late 2000s. Instead, the Minneapolis band gravitated toward dusty iterations of classic rock-- more Tom Petty than Gram Parsons or the Minutemen. What distinguished them-- and what qualified them for membership in the alt-country club-- was the vocals: Gary Louris and Mark Olson sang like they were born joined at the throat, alternating between tight harmonies and unisons in the style of such old-time country duos as the Louvin Brothers, whom they have covered repeatedly throughout their quarter-century career. Music From the North Country is the Jayhawks' first retrospective of any kind, which seems odd for a band so closely associated with such a prominent trend, but the band itself has been in disarray for half a decade now as its members focus more on solo and duo albums. In fact, this release seems geared more toward Louris and Olson's recent joint tours than toward the band's reunion gigs in Barcelona and Minneapolis.
Music from the North Country traces their story from their beginnings as a struggling local act to their final chapter as a struggling national act. Arguing persuasively for the Jayhawks as great vocalists, decent style synthesists, and thwarted careerists, this candid compilation doesn't overlook mistakes or strain for happy endings. It's fitting, then, that the retrospective opens with "Two Angels"-- not the more well-known Hollywood Town Hall version, but the rawer recording from Blue Earth, whose forlorn harmonica and roomy vocal reverb make it not only an ideal introduction but a good point to measure just how much or how little their sound expanded in 15 years.
The songs from Blue Earth, Hollywood Town Hall, and 1995's Tomorrow the Green Grass show the band at the top of their game, making the drama of "Take Me With You (When You Go)", the narrative specifics of "Clouds", and eloquent arrangement of "I'd Run Away" sound easy and natural. Shortly after the release of Grass, Olson left the band to make a series of inconsequential albums with then-wife Victoria Williams (of the overrated "Miss Williams' Guitar"), robbing the band of its most distinctive characteristic and leaving Louris to soldier on as frontman. The biggest surprise on Music From the North Country is how well the tracks from the Jayhawks' first Olson-less album hold up. Trading their classic-rock harmonies for dark pop influences*, Sound of Lies* chronicled their own career inertia, and while Louris can sound self-absorbed, he can also be brutal in his self-assessment, calling himself "a has-been at a mere thirty-five" on "Big Star". Yes, it's named after the Memphis band, and yes, it romanticizes their obscurity, yet that song and "The Man Who Loved Life" are hearty rock anthems for any musician with more dreams than fans.
The commercial and critical failure of Sound of Lies was a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is unfortunate since it's also the last time the Jayhawks sounded so compellingly hungry. After "The Man Who Loved Life", Music From the North Country falters and never recovers: The tracks from their 2000 album Smile are busy with bells and whistles, as if desperate to convince listeners of their songs' importance, and those from 2003's possible swan song Rainy Day Music have some nice moments-- the streamlined tempo of "Tailspin", the empathetic chorus of "Angelyne"-- but in general, the band sound too comfortable, as if cowed by their diminishing horizons into making a safe album.
That's the official story, ending not with a bang but with a series of whimpers, and as such, Music From the North Country seems less interested in prompting nostalgia in long-time fans than in telling newcomers told-you-so. But the deluxe edition of this retrospective provides a parallel history that is just as compelling, if not necessarily as accessible. In addition to a DVD of videos and promo clips (including a cameo by "Weeds" star Mary-Louise Parker), it features a second disc of rarities, covers, live cuts, and demos, starting with their self-titled debut and ending with rough takes of Rainy Day Music tracks. Opener "Falling Star" and Hollywood-era "Stone Cold Mess" make the country elements of their sound much more explicit, while Fred Neil and J.D. Loudermilk covers suggest the breadth of styles they processed. This disc contains alternate versions of some of their most popular songs, some of which improved from demo to studio ("Old Woman from Red Clay" now sounds like a strange karaoke version of "Two Angels") and others that suffered during the same process ("Someone Will" has a sharper lyrical sting than the vaguely creepy "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me"). Presenting so many what-if scenarios, this disc tracks a very different career arc in which the Jayhawks never get as famous as they might have expected but never seem to care.
