About Gary Louris
Gary Michael Louris is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter of alternative country and pop music. He was a founding member of the Minneapolis-based band the Jayhawks and their principal songwriter and vocalist after the departure of Mark Olson. Louris is often credited with the band's subsequent move from folk-country toward a more progressive, pop sound.
Gary Louris grew up in Toledo, Ohio, where he took piano lessons before becoming a guitarist as a teenager. He graduated from St. John's Jesuit High School in 1973. Louris received a BA in Architecture from the University of Minnesota School of Architecture in 1977.
The Jayhawks were formed in 1985 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Louris had formerly played guitar in a rockabilly band, Safety Last. On May 13, 2003, the Jayhawks appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and performed "Save It for a Rainy Day", from their "Rainy Day Music" CD. The Jayhawks recorded seven albums before going on indefinite hiatus in 2005.
In 2011 the Jayhawks reunited and recorded a new album, Mockingbird Time. The lineup consisted of Mark Olson, Gary Louris, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg, and Tim O'Reagan. At that time Louris said, "Our goal is to make the best Jayhawks album that's ever been done". Eighteen songs were recorded, 16 of them new, but only 12 are included on the record. The band toured in support of the album.
Olson left The Jayhawks again in late 2012 and the band went on another short hiatus. They reformed in early 2014 to support the reissues of 3 Jayhawks albums released between 1997 and 2003. After a year of touring with most of the 1997 lineup the band announced that they would be working on a new studio album, Paging Mr. Proust, which was released on April 29, 2016 on Thirty Tigers.
Louris is also a member of the intermittent Midwest musical collective Golden Smog; other members have included fellow Jayhawk Marc Perlman, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy from Soul Asylum, Kraig Johnson of Run Westy Run and Chris Mars of the Replacements.
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