Mark Olson & Gary Louris by Steven Cohen Photography

Ready for the Flood, the new album from former Jayhawks members Mark Olson and Gary Louris is due for release on January 27th according to Amazon.com and other sources. Ready for the Flood was originally supposed to be released on September 15th on Olson’s home label Hacktone but was moved to New West Records, current home of John Hiatt, The Old 97’s and The Drive By Truckers and other artists who compliment Olson and Louris’s country-influenced sound.

Ready for the Flood was recorded in January with production help from Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, who also worked on Louris’s brilliant solo album Vagabonds. Since both Louris and Olson had solo records released last year that still needed to be promoted and toured, they decided to delay the release until late this year, and now the release is moved to January with the label switch.

Shortly on the heels of Flood’s release Olson and Louris will kick off a tour during February in support of the album hitting small venues across the nation, wrapping up at a hometown show in Minneapolis at the Varsity Theatre. If any of the torrents of the live shows in Europe are any indication, these shows will be a Jayhawks fan’s dream pulling songs from the new album and songs from the Jayhawks catalog in an intimate stripped-down acoustic set.

Olson and Louris will be playing the (sadly) best-kept secret venue of Cedar Rapids, CSPS on February 19th. Mark Olson played a well-received show there in February this year– in fact it will be almost a year to the date! Tickets are $17 in advance and $20 the day of the show.

Click Here to visit the MySpace page for Ready for the Flood with song samples

Click Here to visit the Facebook Event I created.