Mark Olson

There are only few artists who left such a strong and lasting imprint on a musical genre like Jayhawks founder and singer Mark Olson, in Alternative Country / Americana. Milestones such as Hollywood Town Hall (1991) or Tomorrow The Green Grass (1995) are timeless masterpieces of American music. Olson left the Jayhawks after Tomorrow The Green Grass and settled down with his then wife, Victoria Williams in Joshua Tree, CA next to the Mojave desert. In the following years he released a string beautiful albums under the name Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers.

The poetic and redemptive 2007 solo debut The Salvation Blues and the 2010 follow-up Many Colored Kite was inspired by months spent crisscrossing the Old Continent via the EuroRail. That same year, after a 15-year hiatus, Olson wrote and recorded a reunion album, Mockingbird Time, with The Jayhawks, followed by two more years of touring the U.S. and Europe.

Meanwhile Mark found a new partner in life and music, the Norwegian singer and multi-instrumentalist Ingunn Ringvold, who recorded three classy albums under the moniker Sailorine for the Norwegian Voices of Wonder label, and guested on Mockingbird Time. Ready to take the next step and to create his new album Good-bye Lizelle, Mark & Ingunn travelled from Armenia to South Africa, USA to Norway and Finland to Czechia to record eleven poetical songs that feature guests such as Neal Casal, Aaron Sterling (Liz Phair, William Fitzsimmons), Danny Frankel (k.d. Lang, Rickie Lee Jones), or Oystein Greni of Norway's #1 rock band Big Bang.

Good-bye Lizelle was recorded in many different places; apartments, cabins and outdoors in National Parks, using Mark's Nagra portable recording system in order to create a 'homemade', somehow vintage and warm atmosphere sound-wise. Listening to the album, one can only admit that Mark completely succeeded, there are more than just hints of the classic Laurel Canyon feel that already made the early Joni Mitchell or Graham Nash albums sound so outstanding. However, Mark Olson is far away from being retro, it is much more that he wants to get to the core, the heart of each song, giving it the perfect arrangement and perfect instrumentation to transport the feel, the idea, and the warmth as intended.

Good-bye Lizelle consists of eleven perfectly crafted pieces, each a story of its own. In depth songs in a timeless sound, benefitting from Ingunn Ringvold's gorgeous duet and harmony vocals, and obviously lyrically a class of it's own. All in all: an outstanding album by one of the greatest songwriters of the last three decades.