From My Morning Jacket's early days, frontman
Jim James had a thing for vocal reverb. On his second solo covers set, it
persists, and serves the project well – these classic songs feel like live
broadcasts from distant memory, clouds in heaven, or an empty theater after
everyone's gone home. Of course, James' gorgeous tenor lies at the heart of it.
Brian Wilson's "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" is handsomely
ghostly; ditto the Orioles' doo-wop gem "Crying In The Chapel,"
distilled to a single lonely voice. The curveball is "Baby Don't Go,"
the singer multi-tracking himself on Sonny and Cher's 1965 hit, harmonizing yin
and yang quite literally, and refreshing a pop classic for a new, gender-fluid
generation.
