|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Twin Cities country-rockers The Jayhawks have seen a lot in their day, having first made their way onto the music scene directly on the heels of early pioneers in their hybrid genre of choice 40 years ago this year.
But the well-established group continues to explore new territory both musically and geographically with their first performance in the Tri-Valley this month.
A majority of the original founding members of the Minnesota-based group that has come to be known for their signature blend of country, alternative and rock genres and distinct songwriting skills are set to take to the stage of the Bankhead Theater as an early part of Livermore Valley Arts’ new season lineup.
Marc Perlman, the band’s original bassist, told the Pleasanton Weekly in a recent interview that while the band had explored numerous metropolitan areas including San Francisco in their earlier days, their current focus is on smaller cities — including Livermore — and more intimate performances that bring the opportunity to connect with fans who might not otherwise have had the chance to see them perform live.
“The core of the band, and what has always been what has kept our identity was our songwriting, and a lot of it was the vocal harmony,” Perlman said.
With the band having seen turnover throughout their four decades while some members have taken breaks or left to focus on solo projects, Perlman and vocalist and lead guitarist Gary Louris are the two founding members that have been linchpins from the beginning, with drummer and vocalist Tim O’Reagan joining them in 1995, and keyboardist Karen Grotberg, who first joined the band in 1992, back in the lineup as of 2008.
“When we first started out, I think I was just learning how to play — in a way we all were — and also learning how to navigate ourselves through the music business, but we were pretty wide-eyed and had a lot of energy,” Perlman said.
“So we got into the band and played for gas money for a few years, and there were times when we thought it wasn’t going to happen, but we always prided ourselves on being able to make original music and write our own songs,” he added. “And that kind of kept us going because real music fans appreciate good songwriting.”
Perlman said that he, Louris and the band’s other early members found each other relatively organically, playing in the same burgeoning Minnesota music scene in the mid-1980s and being inspired by similar trailblazers in the country, rock, and folk genres including Bob Dylan and The Byrds.
“Our musical common ground was kind of the country-folk vocal harmony bands that were important in the ’70s,” Perlman said.
That common ground, along with a catalog of folk-rock tunes written by founding member and former frontman Mark Olson, plus the energy of the local music scene that was gaining national attention at the time, served as a base from which the band would go on to develop the songwriting skills and vocal harmonies that would go on to be key factors in their distinctive sound into the present day.
“The best advice I got was if you see someone you really admire, study them,” Perlman said. “We all evolved in that way, learning about our instruments and the songwriters that we admire. And it’s not about copying at all — it’s about what did they do to get to the core of the song that makes people latch onto it musically.”
The band’s sound and songwriting-style also came to be highly influenced by the addition of Louris, who joined the band shortly after Perlman, with the two going on to leading the writing process as the band began gaining national recognition and touring.
“Gary and me became the primary songwriters and we became a songwriting team,” Perlman said. “And after Mark left, it kind of opened the door more for him and I to produce our own material, and at that time we started to collaborate more in some ways.”
Perlman said that touring looks very different for the band in the present day, with the economic landscape no longer in favor of the group traveling for weeks at a time, causing them to instead focus on more regional tours and shows several times per year and visiting smaller communities and venues, such as the Bankhead.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you again like old times,” Perlman said.
The Jayhawks are set to perform at the Bankhead Theater at 2400 First St. in Livermore next Saturday (Sept. 14) at 8 p.m. Tickets and more information are available at livermorearts.org.
