My Morning Jacket Hit the Studio

Last weekend, Jim James played a stunning acoustic set at the Newport Folk Festival and showed up onstage with both the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and folk legend John Prine. Backstage, the My Morning Jacket frontman told Rolling Stone the band is currently recording the follow-up to 2008's Evil Urges in their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. "We've got five songs done," he says. "We've worked a couple weeks. We're going to do another month. It'll probably be out mid-next year — probably May."

Check out photos from the 2010 Newport Folk Festival.

James says that he is co-producing the album with Tucker Martine, who produced the Decemberists' The Crane Wife and Hazards of Love discs. "We're recording it in a church in Louisville," he says. "We've never made a record in Louisville before."

James calls Evil Urges, which was recorded in Colorado and New York, "the hardest record we've ever made." The new sessions sound more upbeat. "I'm really excited," he says. "It's all live, so the vibe is really, really good, really wholesome. There's something about it. We've done stuff mostly live but then you do some overdubs, some vocals, or whatever. But we're trying to do everything other than maybe strings live. There's just something old and dirty about it."

Since Evil Urges, the band has been busy with various side projects. James released George Harrison tribute EP Tribute To and appeared on the Monsters of Folk. Guitarist Carl Broemel will release his second solo album All Birds Say on August 31st. My Morning Jacket will play all five of their albums during a five-night stand in October at New York's Terminal 5. In late August, they will support Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for three dates in Massachusetts and New Jersey. "I'm looking forward to it," says James. "It'd be awesome if we get to play with him."

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Song Stories

“Tonight's the Night”

The Shirelles | 1960

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."

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