The Jayhawks have been quietly shaping the Americana sound since they emerged from the Minneapolis scene in the mid-1980s, and they're marking four decades of it with a show at the CMA Theater on Friday, November 13. The stop is part of the Sanctuary Park Tour, and it comes with Mary Gauthier opening. Doors open at 6:30 PM, and the music starts at 7:30.
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For anyone who hasn't followed them, the Jayhawks built their name on a blend of country, folk, soul, Britpop and rock and roll that helped lay the groundwork for what people now call alt-country. Over the years they've toured with and played backup for Ray Davies, Roger McGuinn and Johnny Cash, and their catalog has grown to more than a dozen studio albums and three live records. The lineup you'll see on stage is Gary Louris on guitar, lead and backing vocals, Tim O'Reagan on drums, Karen Grotberg on keyboards and Marc Perlman on bass, with O'Reagan and Perlman both adding lead vocals alongside Louris.
The tour takes its name from Sanctuary Park, the band's twelfth studio album, which came out on August 28 through Thirty Tigers. It was produced by Bob Ezrin, who also did their 2000 album Smile, and the whole thing was tracked in Toronto in ten days with the same lineup. The title is a double reference: Sanctuary Park is a real place in Dundas, Ontario, where Louris's wife Stephanie grew up, and it's also a fictional place. Louris and Stephanie met at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern in 2019 and married in 2020. The album was published on Louris's own Sham Records, and the tour runs through the fall of 2026 and into the spring of 2027, with stops in St. Louis and Portland following the Nashville date.
Mary Gauthier is a fitting opening act. Born Mary Veronica Gauthier in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she's a country and folk songwriter whose work pulls directly from her own life, including adoption, addiction and recovery. She's been sober since July 1990, and that history runs through songs that have been recorded by Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Vince Gill, Kathy Mattea, Boy George, Jimmy Buffett, Bettye LaVette, Candi Staton and Amy Helm. Her most recent album, Reckoning, was released on September 25 through Soundly, and her recent sets have leaned on songs like Falling Out of Love, Judgment Day, Alcohol and Adderall, Drag Queens in Limousines, The War After the War and Mercy Now.
A few practical notes before you go. The CMA Theater is an intimate room with 776 seats, so it fills up and stays relatively small, and there's a six-ticket limit per household. Tickets are sold through CountryMusicHallofFame.org and CMATheater.com, and if you have questions you can reach them at 615-760-6556 or info@cmatheater.com. The venue sits at 224 Rep. John Lewis Way S in downtown Nashville, so it's easy to get to and stay near for the night.
Published Date
20 October 2026
