Tomorrow the Green Grass (Legacy Edition)

iTunes Review

1995’s Tomorrow The Green Grass was the Jayhawks’ last long-player with original co-founder and singer/songwriter Mark Olson (that is until he reunited with the band in 2009). Produced by the whip-cracking studio disciplinarian George Drakoulias and trimmed with the beautiful keyboard work of Karen Grotberg, who first appeared here as a fulltime band member, many fans still consider this album to be the jewel in the crown of the Jayhawks’ discography. “Blue” sets the tone with acoustic guitars, barbed melodies, tasteful arrangements and the uncanny vocal chemistry between Olson and co-frontman Gary Louris. They turn Grand Funk Railroad’s “Bad Time” into something that sounds like Tom Petty fronting Crazy Horse. In hindsight it seems foreboding that the stunningly beautiful Americana baroque-pop tune “I’d Run Away” was sequenced to play before “Miss Williams’ Guitar,” a Gram Parsons sounding country-rocker that was written for High Desert chanteuse Victoria Williams, whom Olson married and formed the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers following his departure.