Reunited Jayhawks play Austin in November

NEW YORK Fans of the Jayhawks who are happy the band has an unexpected third life probably don't know how much they owe to producers of the sports film "The Rookie" or Spanish music promoter David Jimenez-Zumalacarregui.

Each played a key role in the band's reformation because they made the right request at the right time.

The Minneapolis-born rock band, pioneers of what was known as the alternative country movement in the early 1990s, are an active touring unit again and have a new disc, "Mockingbird Time," released this month.

Even more than the songs, the joy of the album comes in hearing the Jayhawks luxuriate in the signature of their sound: the vocal harmonies of songwriters Gary Louris and Mark Olson. Their voices blend so well — Louris taking the high registers and Olson the low — that they become to Louris' ears almost like a third voice.

It's a sound many thought was lost forever in 1995 when Olson quit the band and moved to California. Years of swimming against the musical tide of the grunge era and disappointment that songs like "Blue" and "Take Me With You (When You Go)" had not become hits despite hard work and critical acclaim had taken their toll.

Unlike now, "we were playing in front of audiences who really didn't know who we were and our goal — the whole reason for being out there — was to try to win them over," Olson said. "That's a whole different mindset and I think it got to me after a while."

He was burned out.

"That's one of the things we're going to copyright," Louris said. "\u2009'Burning out' is one and 'soldiering on' is the other."

Yes, Louris soldiered on, finding new voices and a less pastoral new sound, and releasing three strong albums in the Jawhawks' second edition.

Enter "The Rookie." Producers of the 2002 film wanted to include a new Louris-Olson song and the two men agreed. The song they wrote wasn't included in the movie or soundtrack, but they enjoyed working together again. While Louris stayed with the Jayhawks, Olson had his own, more acoustic band, the Creekdippers, that had more success in Europe than the United States.

By 2005, Louris was the one feeling burnt, and he shut the Jayhawks down. "I really felt the band was over when we sold all the gear," he said.

Louris and Olson continued working together as an acoustic duo and recorded a disc as a team. Wherever they played, they'd hear the same refrain from fans: When are you going to get the band back together?

In 2008, Jimenez-Zumalacarregui asked for the Jayhawks to play a Spanish music festival. He didn't just request the Jayhawks, he requested a specific lineup, with Louris, Olson, bass player Marc Perlman, keyboardist Karen Grotberg and drummer Tim O'Reagan.

He braced himself for the usual excuses when a band doesn't want to work together again — too much time has gone by, or they don't want to go back in the past. He didn't get them.

"I thought it was going to be more difficult," he admitted.

Jimenez-Zumalacarregui had the standing to make such a request because Spain, largely because of his work, was one of the Jayhawks' strongest markets. Louris had become a friend and the promoter helped him buy a home there.

The promoter laughingly appreciates his small role in rock history.

"It's something I have to show to my mother because she still doesn't know what kind of business I'm doing," Jimenez-Zumalacarregui said. "She thinks I'm a drug dealer or something."

The Jayhawks kept the reunion low-key as Louris and Olson began writing songs for the new disc. At the same time, reissues of their 1990s material renewed attention to the band. Whatever the reasons — fans passing the music around, a new generation of people discovering the old discs or fans of the second Jayhawks edition curious to see what it was like with Olson — their audience in many cases is larger now than it was in the 1990s.

"What I'm proud of is that we didn't just go out and say, 'Let's play all the old hits,'\u2009" Louris said. "I don't know how bands do that."

"They had more success than us," Olson said. "They've had these huge successes so it's hard."