Rebound by Yolanda Olson

It seems odd that Salvation Blues is Mark Olson's first true solo recording. After his tenure with the Jayhawks, Olson left the band to spend more time in Joshua Tree with his then-wife, fellow singer/songwriter Victoria Williams. Olson released a quartet of recordings with the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers (aka the Creekdippers), always with Williams either sharing the billing or in the band. Olson and Williams divorced in February of 2006, and he lost the home he built in Joshua Tree as a result. He took off on a solo tour of Europe where the sketches for a number of the songs on Salvation Blues were written.

New Masters Academy brings you modern masters that teach you art. Here you have Erik Olson teaching you perspective.

Austin-to-L.A. transplants the Textones were one of the few post-new wave "roots rock" bands of the mid-'80s to deserve the appellation. (Unfortunately, they're mostly remembered, if at all, only as the band Kathy Valentine left to join the Go-Go's.) Unlike the terribly overrated Lone Justice or the beer salesmen in the Long Ryders or the Del Fuegos, Carla Olson and company came off like a punkier version of the Gram Parsons-era Byrds, with a poppy edge on unexpected covers like the Searchers' "Silver" and Neil Sedaka's "Keep a Walkin'."

Yolanda Kondonassis' skill on the harp is legendary. So too are her arrangements for the instrument. Many times you hear arrangements that restate the composer's original themes, but don't make the music fit the instrument. I often feel this way about much of Bach's music on the piano. Other times you find arrangements that stretch beyond the original in ways that get in the way. For me, the best example of this is the Stokowski arrangements of Bach's organ works for orchestra.