While still in flux, the Jayhawks were bolstered by major label support, making the expectations for Tomorrow The Green Grass even higher. They obviously liked what keyboards brought to their sound, so Karen Grotberg was now an official member on piano; her high harmonies are welcome too. The drummer situation hadn’t been worked out yet, so session ace Don Heffington was used throughout, and Benmont Tench is credited for simply “organ”. Once again the songwriting were credited overall to Mark Olson and Gary Louris. (This time the liner notes were by legendary Minneapolis folk figure Tony Glover.)The plaintive “Blue” has since become one of our favorite songs by anybody, and they must have known they had something special, as they got the legendary Paul Buckmaster to add strings. “I’d Run Away” gallops in on a chorus of violin and viola for a wonderful country jangle; Gary still has his “Carly Simon singing with Buffalo Springfield” tone in his voice. “Miss Williams’ Guitar” is a rare overt lyric from Mark, here unabashedly paying tribute to his new bride, cult folksinger Victoria Williams. “Two Hearts” is more subdued, breaking out with an “I am lonely” plea just before the guitar break, but “Real Light” turns the amps back on before “Over My Shoulder” layers on the lonesome harmonies. And what could be cooler than covering “Bad Time”, the last hit single by Grand Funk, a band who hadn’t been cool since, if that?
Gary’s bending picking is on display throughout the otherwise quiet “See Him On The Street”, to which “Nothing Left To Borrow” provides excellent counterpoint. “Ann Jane” is slow and either heartbreaking or creepy, since we’re not sure of the intentions of the narrator, and sports not only a Wurlitzer electric piano, but a backwards drum pattern taken from “Bell Bottom Blues”. “Pray For Me” is all doubled guitars and 12-strings, sounding most like the previous album. “Red’s Song”, the one track also credited as written by bass player Marc Perlman, is another party trick where the boys’ voices sound identical until they don’t. “Ten Little Kids” is a sneaky finale, beginning with an innocent strum and descending into an all-out thrash that moves through glorious choruses and ends in a wash of not unpleasant feedback that ends abruptly.
Tomorrow The Green Grass didn’t thrill right away, particularly if you were expecting more of the crunch from the last album. But the quality was all there, complementing Hollywood Town Hall very well, and not just to fill the other side of a Maxell XLII-90 tape.
Such was the stature of the album over time that it was prominently reissued anytime the erstwhile Def American label changed distributors, and was even blessed with a deluxe Legacy Edition 25 or so years after its initial release. The first disc was bolstered with three outtakes, as well as the title track, previously consigned to a B-side, as was Karen’s vocal spotlight on the country weeper “Last Cigarette”. Hidden at the end is a scratchy unfinished demo of “Blue” that provides a stepping stone to the second disc, which is loaded with so-called “Mystery Demos”, recorded by Olson and Louris acoustically throughout 1992 with an occasional fiddler. Some of these songs made it to this album, some would be tackled down the road, and the rest were never essayed again. It can make for an occasionally spooky, American gothic listening experience, but there are some wonderful moments.
The Jayhawks Tomorrow The Green Grass (1995)—4
2011 Legacy Edition: same as 1995, plus 24 extra tracks
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