My Morning Jacket think they are Marvin Gaye
LokoOne
1,823 Posts
Found this story online.kinda weird.dont know what to make of it. cheap marketing ploy or real life appreciation of a soul master?Anyone herd this new MMJ lp? Or any of there shit for that matter? Sounds kinda 
"Marvin's legacy By BERNARD ZUELJanuary 17, 2009TAKE a look at My Morning Jacket - five white, Kentucky men of serious mien and even more serious hair. So much hair.They bear guitars, drums and keyboards in the conventional way. After a decade they had a reputation for long musical forays of a complex, psychedelic nature; like a jam band that grew up on a diet of Neil Young and herbal smokes rather than the Grateful Dead and electric Kool Aid. For most people, for most of their fans certainly, they were a rock band. A good rock band, maybe even a great rock band, but still, a rock band.But they're not. Ask Jim James, singer and songwriter, and you'll be told My Morning Jacket are a soul band. Not just because he took to offering a falsetto or two on the band's most recent album, Evil Urges. Or because one out-and-out funky song sounds more like Prince than Lynyrd Skynyrd. But because when he made Evil Urges, James did what he always has done: aimed to re-create in some way his favourite album, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On."I think it's maybe the greatest album ever made in my humble opinion," says James (born James Olliges jnr) in a manner so relaxed you could almost call it reclining. "For me it feels like the ultimate musical goal achieved. From every vantage point. It's so emotional, so spiritual and it combines so many aspects: there's some rock, there's some soul, some beautiful string arrangements, the rhythms are insane, the melodies are insane. The whole thing is perfectly timed and perfectly paced and it flows like a river."That blend of rock, soul, rhythms, melodies, spirituality and melancholy is all through Evil Urges. It's an ambitious amalgam, one tried by many over the years with minimal success and certainly not without taking the risk of alienating fans. My Morning Jacket didn't escape the opprobrium from some of its most devoted supporters."It's funny, a lot of people do just listen to one kind of music and I feel like a lot of the time people determine the music they are listening to by their race or their gender," James says. "I think a lot of people who put on a record by a band that they classify in their head to be a white indie-rock band of males in their 20s don't like it when they hear something that they don't immediately identify with."Is he any different when artists he likes make changes?"Absolutely not. I feel like a lot of my favourite music, I didn't like it at first or I didn't understand it," confesses James. "I remember feeling that way with What's Going On the first time I heard that because I don't think I was ready for the depth, complexity and the notion of hearing something that was like Dark Side Of The Moon in its concept and execution and flow."Which is a cue to see another exchange point between the rock and soul sides - the Neil Young, Pink Floyd and Marvin Gaye sides if you like - of My Morning Jacket: their near-spiritual state on stage where shows can sometimes extend beyond four hours."Music in that sense is the ultimate religious experience for me," James says almost reverentially. "Playing a concert, the best concert, feels so good that the whole evening kind of turns into a big blur of sound and light and feels like it only lasted three seconds instead of three hours. That's the reason why people play music and the reason why people want to see music, because it is that connection with the other realm ??? that's religion to me, that escaping yourself."
"Marvin's legacy By BERNARD ZUELJanuary 17, 2009TAKE a look at My Morning Jacket - five white, Kentucky men of serious mien and even more serious hair. So much hair.They bear guitars, drums and keyboards in the conventional way. After a decade they had a reputation for long musical forays of a complex, psychedelic nature; like a jam band that grew up on a diet of Neil Young and herbal smokes rather than the Grateful Dead and electric Kool Aid. For most people, for most of their fans certainly, they were a rock band. A good rock band, maybe even a great rock band, but still, a rock band.But they're not. Ask Jim James, singer and songwriter, and you'll be told My Morning Jacket are a soul band. Not just because he took to offering a falsetto or two on the band's most recent album, Evil Urges. Or because one out-and-out funky song sounds more like Prince than Lynyrd Skynyrd. But because when he made Evil Urges, James did what he always has done: aimed to re-create in some way his favourite album, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On."I think it's maybe the greatest album ever made in my humble opinion," says James (born James Olliges jnr) in a manner so relaxed you could almost call it reclining. "For me it feels like the ultimate musical goal achieved. From every vantage point. It's so emotional, so spiritual and it combines so many aspects: there's some rock, there's some soul, some beautiful string arrangements, the rhythms are insane, the melodies are insane. The whole thing is perfectly timed and perfectly paced and it flows like a river."That blend of rock, soul, rhythms, melodies, spirituality and melancholy is all through Evil Urges. It's an ambitious amalgam, one tried by many over the years with minimal success and certainly not without taking the risk of alienating fans. My Morning Jacket didn't escape the opprobrium from some of its most devoted supporters."It's funny, a lot of people do just listen to one kind of music and I feel like a lot of the time people determine the music they are listening to by their race or their gender," James says. "I think a lot of people who put on a record by a band that they classify in their head to be a white indie-rock band of males in their 20s don't like it when they hear something that they don't immediately identify with."Is he any different when artists he likes make changes?"Absolutely not. I feel like a lot of my favourite music, I didn't like it at first or I didn't understand it," confesses James. "I remember feeling that way with What's Going On the first time I heard that because I don't think I was ready for the depth, complexity and the notion of hearing something that was like Dark Side Of The Moon in its concept and execution and flow."Which is a cue to see another exchange point between the rock and soul sides - the Neil Young, Pink Floyd and Marvin Gaye sides if you like - of My Morning Jacket: their near-spiritual state on stage where shows can sometimes extend beyond four hours."Music in that sense is the ultimate religious experience for me," James says almost reverentially. "Playing a concert, the best concert, feels so good that the whole evening kind of turns into a big blur of sound and light and feels like it only lasted three seconds instead of three hours. That's the reason why people play music and the reason why people want to see music, because it is that connection with the other realm ??? that's religion to me, that escaping yourself."
Comments
Here is one of their better songs. It's fantastic if you like this kind of stuff, but definitely not 'soul' in the normal sense.
The Bear - My Morning Jacket
these days, a bunch of bearded white guys in a band get to say what they are, and other people believe it, because they are also bearded white guys in a band
Seriously, I read some article once where Jimmy Buffett described his music as, 'unclassifiable'.
Look, you're dudes who play guitars. File under: ROCK.
Shut up and play.
"Move On Up" - Curtis Mayfield cover
"You're All I Need" - Marvin Gaye cover
"Express Yourself" - Charles Wright cover
"Cold Sweat" - James Brown cover
Probably not the kind of things people would expect out of a "rock" band from Kentucky.
By that same token, !!! did a cover of Nate Dogg's Get Up. Doesn't make !!! any closer to being a hip hop act. And doesn't Phish do all sorts of ridiculous covers in their shows? They're still a goofy jam band, regardless of what they cover.
Those first two were killers, and they lost me with 'It Still Moves...' They need an editor in the WORST way. Self-indulgent doesn't begin to describe them...
these guys sound like some bar band from the local fake brew pub playing "soul" music.
THIS played Madison Square Gardens????
ha, my thoughts exactly.
Same here dude from another brother from a different mother in KY; I like their old gritty rock and slash music; I hate their covers of soul songs, their new CD people are ravin' over because of its sound. Go back to the old stuff JIM JAMES, quit tryin to be a band your not!
I don't know about Marvin Gaye, but you dudes are making me feel like it's Dylan at Newport all over again. Can't he live?
I heard they wanted to do something different, they told their hardcore fanbase that most would not like the new sound/new CD. I've got people tryin' to throw the "evil urges" in my face, sayin listen to this new sound its awesome! I want to tell those people, do you even listen to music? Its been done before. "At Dawn" will be the utmost album they put out in my words. Recording in a barn silo also helps.
That's not a bad cover. Although "you sound relatively like Charles Wright" is not a compliment unless you're covering Charles Wright.