The Jayhawks bring 40 years and 'Sanctuary Park' to CMA Theater

The band's anniversary tour, built around its new Bob Ezrin-produced album, stops in Nashville on Friday, Nov. 13.

Forty years is long enough for a band to become a reference point, the name other musicians drop when they explain where their harmonies came from. This Friday, that band is in a room built to honor exactly that kind of legacy. The Jayhawks play CMA Theater on Friday, Nov. 13, with the show listed for 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are sold through the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which hosts the date under the tour's full name: the Sanctuary Park Tour: Celebrating 40 Years of The Jayhawks. Nashville sits in the middle of a tight Southern and Midwestern swing, with Chapel Hill–Carrboro on Nov. 11 and Atlanta on Nov. 12 before it, then St. Louis on Nov. 14, Lexington on Nov. 17, Indianapolis on Nov. 18 and Chicago on Nov. 19.

The tour exists to celebrate an anniversary, but it is not a nostalgia lap. The band released a new studio album, Sanctuary Park, in late August, issued on Gary Louris's Sham Records label and distributed by Thirty Tigers, as Americana Highways and JamBase reported. The record reunites the band with producer Bob Ezrin, who last worked with them on 2000's Smile.

It is very much a Louris album. He wrote or co-wrote every track, and reviews from Riff Magazine and At The Barrier describe a set of songs playing to his strengths. The title comes from a real park in Dundas, Ontario. Louris recorded the album in Toronto, and the songs are full of Canadian references and written as a love letter to his wife, Stephanie; he talked about finding love, a new country and a reason to write again with SPIN. The lead single was "Keeping Our Heads Above Water," followed by "American Midnight."

An anniversary tour is easy to sell on the old songs. This one arrives with a new record worth hearing alongside them.

That balance is what to listen for on Friday. A band four decades in has a catalog that can fill a night by itself, and fans will be waiting on the songs they have carried around for years. The interesting part is how the new material sits next to them, and whether songs about a park in small-town Ontario land as naturally as the ones that made the band's name.

CMA Theater is a smart room for that test. It sits inside the Hall of Fame complex downtown, seated and built for listening, which suits a band whose whole appeal comes down to voices blending and guitars that ring rather than roar. You hear the harmonies in a room like this; you don't have to fight for them.

It also suits the city. Nashville has spent decades honoring songwriters who outlasted trends, and the Hall of Fame putting its own name on this booking says something about where the band sits in that story.

So go early, grab a drink, and settle in. It is not often a band marks 40 years by giving you something new to love.

Sources: JamBase: The Jayhawks at CMA Theater (jambase.com); Country Music Hall of Fame: Sanctuary Park Tour (countrymusichalloffame.org); JamBase: The Jayhawks celebrate 40 years with new album Sanctuary Park, single & tour (jambase.com); Americana Highways: Review: The Jayhawks, Sanctuary Park (americanahighways.org); Riff Magazine: The Jayhawks, Sanctuary Park (riffmagazine.com); At The Barrier: The Jayhawks - Sanctuary Park album review (atthebarrier.com); SPIN: Gary Louris found love, a new country and a reason to write again (spinmagazine.com); Americana UK: The Jayhawks Sanctuary Park (americana-uk.com)