I rate The Tennessee Fire - My Morning Jacket’s amazing 1999 debut album – as one of my favourite records of all time. But ever since then I’ve been increasingly disappointed with every subsequent release the band has pushed out, to the point where I disregarded and passed over last year’s Evil Urges without a second thought.
But this 6-track EP from lead singer Jim James covering his favourite George Harrison songs only days after the Beatles members’ death in 2001 is an intimate and inspiring return to the passion and emotion of what I thought I saw in the debut album from his band only two years prior.
James doesn’t take too many risks with any of the tracks – but they’re such genuine and classy renditions that you simply cannot fail to be convinced by their sincerity. When recording these tracks, James was a man trying to find sense within a world left with a void where one of his own idols had once stood.
Behind That Locked Door is an astonishingly haunting track with James’ soaring lonesome voice carrying above the 8-track’s hiss and an acoustic guitar. My Sweet Lord is a methodical dismembering of mixed emotions that wraps up the raw emotions of what this project is about. All Things Must Pass leads us out – a song sung by a talented musician paying tribute to one of music’s great talents.
The morose reflection brought on by the passing of George Harrison has led to a very special and personal release – which I am very happy to have been able to hear.
