Amazon.com essential recording
The Jayhawks' breakthrough album is a roots rock classic. "Like folk music, but really loud," is how guitarist Gary Louris liked to describe the Jayhawks, but the reality is more complex--try the country-rock sound of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Neil Young, or the Band married to white-boy soul, bar band rawness, and a slight alternative edge.
Hollywood Town Hall is a masterpiece of American songwriting, blending irresistible melodies, ringing guitars, and Louris and Olson's gorgeous harmonies with moody, imagery-rich lyrics. Best cuts: "Waiting for the Sun," "Take Me with You (When You Go)."
From Amazon.co.uk
Because the Jayhawks' lyrics are more interested in expressing a mournful mood than in evoking any specific emotion, and since their strengths are searing guitar solos and cathartic,
Gram Parsons-influenced harmonies, it makes sense their best album would come when they teamed with a producer (George Drakoulias) who could make all that sorrowful noise come to life.
Hollywood Town Hall is such a sonic marvel, in fact, that even the new version of the beautiful, if vague, "Two Angels" (repeated from their earlier album
Blue Earth) sounds less a retread than a revelation. Though still obscure, like everything here it sounds breathtaking.
--David Cantwell
