My Morning Jacket: Bridges Gap between Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd

An interesting article on My Morning Jacket in the Corvallis Gazette-Times (Oregon) by Jake TenPas. The premise is that there are two kinds of people in the world:

Neil Young fans and Skynyrd fans.

The feud between Neil and Skynyrd has been well documented before on the dueling lyrics of Young's "Southern Man" and Lynyrd Skynyrd response "Sweet Home Alabama."

There are some great lines in the article linking the three bands, such as:

"Happily, the fine, Bourbon-laced state of Kentucky delivered a four-headed baby named "My Morning Jacket," who fulfilled my imaginary prophecy like a doom-drenched royal family in a Frank Herbert book.

If Santa Claus' belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly when he laughs, then My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James' hair shakes like a pyramid full of Cobras when he wails on his Flying-V guitar.

No, My Morning Jacket are the real thing, creating narratives with backdrops that range from smoky, folky ditties about barroom dropouts to epic, multi-part compositions about the majesty of the open road. Plus, they totally rock.

From the spare, emotionally evocative lyrics of Neil Young to the pummeling solos of a Skynyrd record, My Morning Jacket runs the gamut of everything that made '70s rock so classic."

The article continues a rundown of My Morning Jacket's albums including ‘The Tennessee Fire', ‘At Dawn', and ‘It Still Moves'. TenPas writes:

" "Run Thru" has a Neil Young "Cortez"-the-killer psychedelic swagger and one of the most intense Moog-bass breakdowns of all times. Sometimes, when the drums and guitar start to rise back out of that breakdown, I feel the urge to throw myself off the tallest cliff I can find and will myself to fly."

For more, here's a concert review of My Morning Jacket.

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