We were duped. Or maybe we’re just irony-impaired.

Three years ago, Jayhawks founders Mark Olson and Gary Louris reunited for a tour that was to presage a full-tilt reunion of their celebrated alt-country band. At least that’s what Olson told NUVO at the time.

“Oh, yeah,” he said in 2005. “I’ve come back. I think they’re all adjusting to it.”

Now he says this: “Did I go on and on about it? I think I was joking about all of that.”

So, the Jayhawks remain disbanded, but fans still have plenty to chew on. Within the past few months, both Olson and Louris have released their debut solo albums. In the fall, they will deliver their first album as a duo.

Meanwhile, Olson will appear Wednesday at Radio Radio with his current trio, which includes Italian violinist Michele Gazich and Norwegian singer-songwriter Ingunn Ringvold on vocals, djembe and piano. It’s an odd lineup, he admits, but more than a lark.

“We’ve played over 100 shows together,” he says. “We’ve really worked this up.”

The three began touring in August to support Olson’s album, The Salvation Blues. Its 11 songs were distilled from a larger collection written over the previous two years, particularly while staying with friends among the often more receptive audiences of Europe. The initial CD pressing is packaged like a little hardcover book, complete with a dust jacket and a library stamp.

The sound is country-rock, full of guitars, vocal harmonies, piano, organ, pedal steel, dobro, mandolin, violin and more. Olson’s voice is suited to storytelling, with a grainy texture and casual delivery akin to Willie Nelson’s. The songs reflect their author — warm, engaging, random and full of ideas that stick in your head even when they’re not quite linear.

Olson is pleased with the results, noting that his motivations were practical as well as artistic.

“This was a time when I needed to make the best record I could,” he explains. “I had to get out of my aunt’s house.”

Right. It seems a key development during the album’s gestation period was Olson’s divorce from his wife and musical partner, singer-songwriter Victoria Williams. Still, Williams co-wrote two songs on Salvation Blues, and even after the divorce, the two toured together in Germany and the Netherlands, where their four Creekdippers albums have a following. Olson now has a place down the road from Williams’ in Joshua Tree, Calif.

“I’m still going to continue to play with Gary and Victoria,” he says, chuckling. “But the whole band thing is different.” More on Mark at www.myspace.com/markolsonmusic.