If there’s one band out there that proves that you don’t need a “hit single” to be successful it’s My Morning Jacket. It’s surprising to realize, in a way, since this band from Louisville is simply huge. They’ve played four-hour sets at Bonnaroo. They’ve sold out MSG. They got nominated for a Grammy. But it’s their music overall that defines this band as major music makers, and they just keep getting better and better.
My Morning Jacket first started with lead singer Jim James when a lot of the acoustic songs he was writing for his current band Month of Sundays couldn’t quite find their place. MMJ was then formed, and the band’s first album was released in 1999 called The Tennessee Fire, which first gained more popularity in Europe than it did in the states, until their second release At Dawn. The sound of My Morning Jacket introduced a new hippie folk-rock sound, flushed with psychedelia and a thick and sultry echo effect when it came to James’ vocals, which you can hear interwoven throughout the band’s discography, as well as doses of country-pop and southern rock, specifically on one of the band’s strongest albums from 2003, It Still Moves.
Jim James has went on to pursue several side projects like collaborating on the band Monsters of Folk, releasing solo albums of his own, and writing and recording music for Bob Dylan’s lost lyrics on The New Basement Tapes that was also made into a documentary film. But such creative endeavors have only added depth to what the singer now brings to MMJ, as their sound continues to evolve seven albums later (soon to be eight).
Forest Hills Stadium
July 15
6 p.m.
w/ Gary Clark Jr.
$63.50+
axs.com
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