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Mark Olson & Gary Louris
Ready For the Flood
Review By Brian Baker
Once upon a helluva long time ago, Mark Olson and Gary Louris fortuitously crossed paths in Minneapolis, discovered their otherworldly capacity to mesh musically and turned that rare ability into the Jayhawks, one of the leading lights of the nascent Americana scene of the late ’80s. After Olson bailed nearly a decade and a half ago, Louris maintained a Jayhawks presence until production and session assignments diverted his time away from the group. In the meantime, Olson immersed himself in the Harmony Ridge Creekdippers, his acoustic group with his then-wife Victoria Williams. Over the years, Olson and Louris have mended fences and toured as a duo, and Louris contributed vocals to a handful of tracks on Olson’s debut solo album.
It was the last Olson/Louris duo tour that convinced the pair that the time was finally right to document their reunion in the studio and Ready For the Flood is the amazingly low-key result. Both of them originally came to the Jayhawks from bluegrass outfits and those roots surface consistently throughout Flood, their tremulous vocal interweaving reminiscent of the sibling harmonies of the Delmores or the Carters. The glue that holds Olson and Louris together on the largely acoustic Flood is a combination of the chemistry that bonded them over 20 years ago, the separate identities they forged in the absence of the other, and the incredible experience they now bring to this new collective venture.
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