Mark Olson
The goods on the creekdippin' Jayhawk.
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It's a story of a band teetering between stardom and obscurity, and a singer/songwriter who's not quite sure which he wants.
It's a story where said singer/songwriter quits the group and doesn't talk to his former bandmates for about six years, before finally bringing it all back home in front of sell-out crowds -- including a three-night stand in New York City, 10 years later.
In the end, it's the story of how Mark Olson got his groove back.
From the mid-1980s though 1995, Olson was the chief singer/songwriter for the Minneapolis-based Jayhawks, one of those innovative bands that never sought the spotlight, but never really shied from it either.
On two indie releases and two albums on Rick Rubin's Def American Records, the Jayhawks dabbled with country, rock, country rock, and famously, alt.country, one of those stupid labels whose meaning is unclear. Does it mean country? Well, not really. Does it mean alternative? Well, again, not really. All it really means, I guess, is the music isn't found on the country station, but when played on your local alternative signal (are any left?), the songs sound quite out of place.
The Jayhawks' oft-cited crowning achievement is their '92 effort Hollywood Town Hall, a short but sweet outing that is their most consistent, but not as experimental as their biggest seller at the time, '95's Tomorrow The Green Grass. That album contained their biggest radio hit, the soothing "Blue," in which Olson's not-quite nasal vocal meshes -- as it always does -- instinctively beautifully with singer/guitarist Gary Louris' soaring soprano. It is instinct, Olson likes to say. "Gary goes up, I go down," he told one reporter recently.
But just as instinctively as their voices complement each other -- comparisons to the Byrds and Simon & Garfunkel aren't hard to find for these two -- Olson in late 1995 left the band. Touring relentlessly and opening for names like Tom Petty and other big acts whose audiences generally have no patience to hear music that Petty has ripped off (and if you don't think Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is an outright rip-off of the Jayhawks' "Waiting For The Sun," you've got another thing coming), Olson had enough.
"By that time I was burned out," he told Nude As The News. He also felt there was a disconnect between himself and the rhythm section of the group, which included long-time bassist Marc Perlman and a revolving door of drummers. "There was a major problem with the group and the rhythm," he said. "I never felt connected."
So Olson left, moved to Joshua Tree, Calif., with his wife (singer/songwriter Victoria Williams) and has released seven records over the past seven years, including 2004's blistering George Bush epitaph Political Manifest. Under a handful of different monikers (the Rolling Creekdippers, the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers, Mark Olson and the Creekdippers and, finally, the Creekdippers) Olson, Williams and multi-instrumentalist Mike "Razz" Russell have quietly put together quite a catalog, all released independently.
"Vic, Razz and I were friends," Olson said. "We'd record them ourselves [with] no labels involved."
As for the ever-changing "Something and the Creekdippers" name, Olson admitted that the group, which now features drummer and vocalist Ray Woods, "doesn't really have a name." The Creekdippers theme, he said, "implies Victoria," who released an album in the late '90s called Musings Of A Creekdipper, is involved.
The group has touched on folk, blues, country, soul "all the American" forms of music, he said, crediting the addition of Woods with lending a new versatile edge to the band. Woods is a "drummer that doesn't bang" the drums; "he lightly touches the instrument." That musical edge is evident all over Political Manifest, as the group effortlessly infuses country, soul, gospel and even some jazz throughout an album that is about as biting an indictment on the Bush administration as you'll find.
"Listener beware," Olson said when describing the album, which was made in one week. "We just cranked it" out. While Olson has "always had a little bit of social class struggle" inside, Manifest marks his most overt political statement. "I'd call you every name in the book," he sings in "George Bush Industriale," "but women and children are here."
The album also takes on Donald Rumsfeld in the gospel-esque "The End Of The Highway" and Dick Cheney in the sarcastically hilarious "Duck Hunting."
But while the Creekdippers and supporting Victoria Williams' own albums have kept Olson occupied, a songwriting effort in 2002 with his erstwhile former bandmate Louris rekindled an old flame. Olson and Louris had hardly spoken since the former left the Jayhawks, who had moved with middling success beyond the country-tinged rhythms that defined Olson's tenure. But after a movie producer asked the two for a song (a tune that was ultimately rejected), they found their songwriting chemistry had not diminished over time.
The song, "Say You'll Be Mine," found its way onto Olson's 2002 effort December's Child, and combined with the Louris-led Jayhawks 2003 outing Rainy Day Music -- by far the best of the post-Olson collection -- the former leader of the group decided he wanted to play those old tunes again. The Jayhawks now "were grooving and I wanted to groove with them," Olson said.
From there, Olson and Louris got together again and after a week of rehearsals, "we just went out" on tour. The two, along with the Creekdippers' Razz and Woods, and the Jayhawks' second guitarist Stephen McCarthy, booked and roadied their own shows in early 2005 along the Midwest and Northeast.
"It's been really exciting," Olson said. The songs "just came back," he said, adding that the tour resulted in "some of the best music I've played in years and years."
It wasn't quite like old times, though, as Olson found himself playing an instrument he did not play in his initial Jayhawks days -- the bass. "We were grooving," he said. And "I was playing the bass... I was finally in control of with rhythm section." On this tour, "everyone was grooving," he said. "It was a thrill and a half."
While it was not an official Jayhawks reunion tour -- "that's up to Gary," he said -- it was successful enough that Olson and Louris are considering recording new material. The most recent tour left no time to write new songs, but the two have an impressive back catalog and a real desire to move forward. "I'm definitely interested in making a record," he said.
This may take time to put together, though, as Olson said the Creekdippers have a pending tour of Europe and other commitments in the immediate future. "We'll take it one step at a time," he said.
RODEO ROB | An expert on all things "alt," Rob spends his days covering the energy industry and his nights covering the DC-area bars. Raise yer glass especially high to this man, for he has contributed to this site constantly since its creation four years ago.