Gary Michael Louris[1] (born March 10, 1955) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter of alternative country and pop music.

The lineup consisted of Mark Olson, Gary Louris, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg, and Tim O'Reagan.

After a year of touring with most of the 1997 lineup the band announced that they would be working on a new studio album, Paging Mr. Proust, which was released on April 29, 2016 on Thirty Tigers.

[3] Louris is also a member of the intermittent Midwest musical collective Golden Smog; other members have included fellow Jayhawk Marc Perlman, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy from Soul Asylum, Kraig Johnson of Run Westy Run and Chris Mars of the Replacements.

He co-wrote the song "Jealous of the Moon" with Chris Thile in 2005, and it appeared on the Nickel Creek album Why Should the Fire Die?.

In 2015, Louris formed a side project called Au Pair with Durham musician Django Haskins from the band The Old Ceremony.

Chris Osgood, at the time the guitarist of the punk trio the Suicide Commandos, suggested that Waddick buy the guitar and later informed Louris that it was for sale.