My Morning Jacket

Hey all, just wanted to put up a quick post to tell what I’ve been up to.  I flew to Nashville last week to spend a few days arranging and recording strings for My Morning Jacket – a powerful, honest, and thoughtful band that’s been called “the best thing to happen in rock music in years.”  They had finished recording all the other instruments, so strings were the last element to add before mixing.  It was a truly great crew of guys to work with – Jim James (lead vocals, guitar), Patrick Hallahan (drums), and Carl Broemel (guitar) from the band; Tucker Martine producing (I met Tucker working on Abigail Washburn’s record last year); and good ol’ Ben Sollee came down from Lexington, KY to play some cello.

What did I play?  Bass, of course.  Well…. I *did* lay down some wicked arco bass on one tune, which was seriously too much fun (have I been playing the wrong instrument?), but most of the time I was oscillating between a couple violins and a viola, layering sometimes dozens of parts to get a big, glorious string sound.  We were at legendary Blackbird Studio – and they had a sweet-sounding echo chamber we used as well.

The songs are beautiful, real, and often immense – the five songs I heard and worked on, anyway, and the little I heard of the rest of the album was so exciting.  Hopefully we’ll get to hear the whole, finished album soon -  maybe as soon as the spring if all goes well!

Peace…

-Jeremy