The Jayhawks, Rainy Day Music.

(American)

Rainy Day Music is hands-down the best album I've heard in 2003. Gary Louris has rediscovered the vocal stylings fashioned on Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman's with The Flying Burrito Brothers and the classic high harmonies of the Eagles, a staple of The Jayhawks' early recordings with Mark Olson as his vocal partner. Now he's been rejoined with Tim O'Reagan and original 'Hawk Mark Perlman. The result is a soaring, majestic disc that easily ranks with Hollywood Town Hall and High Tides and Green Grass as their best. Once again the band has undergone subtle, meaningful personnel changes. Gone are Jen Gunderman and Kraig Johnson. Stephen McCarthy, producer Ethan Johns, and Richard Causon have been enlisted for at least this disc. As we've chronicled, The Jayhawks are pretty much Louris's band with him and bassist Perlman writing almost all the material--O'Reagan contributes one song. From the opening "Stumbling Through the Dark" (co-penned with Matthew Sweet) to the effervescent "Tailspin" to the proto-baptismal "Come To The River", Rainy Day Music is lush, muscle-bound pop, dipping delicately into heartland America and The Jayhawks' own oeuvre for its inspiration and ambiance. If Bill Frissell is the thinking jazzman's interpreter of the American idiom, Gary Louris could very well be his pop counterpart. There's a lot of good stuff out there right now. Some are Rainy Day Music's equal--none its superior.