Old Settler’s Music Fest—taking place this weekend in Driftwood–focuses on folk music, but it’s a wide-ranging definition. That suits the Jayhawks, fellow musical wanderers. For three decades, the Minneapolis group has practiced a particularly Midwestern strain of folk-rock. Their name reaches back to the Byrds, but the Jayhawks’ songs are cloudier, equal parts barroom and open plain.
After a few years spent on the road revisiting their albums Sound Of Lies, Smile, and Rainy Day Music, the Jayhawks take the Old Settler’s Bluebonnet Stage this Saturday at 7:45 p.m. In 2014, the band stopped by our Studio 1A and played a live version of “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.” It’s a song that brings to mind everything from the Everly Brothers to Neil Young, a folk song in every sense of the word.
–Art Levy