The Witzard

"I went to Las Vegas to perform with Liberace and went [with] him to see Elvis' show. I had never seen someone boldly standing on a stage–supposedly, a heterosexual male–wearing turquoise eye shadow and grinding his hips like that. The orchestra, one-by-one, put down their instruments. They crossed their arms and refused to play. The audience started booing and they booed him off the stage. Then, a voice said to me–and I wasn’t on any drugs–"go around the side of the hotel. There's a swimming pool and you'll find someone in a canary yellow jacket." I went around and in the dark Moonless night, far away, I could see the double-doors of the casino, golden with light. They opened and a figure came into the doorway. It was Elvis, wearing a canary yellow jacket. He looked confusedly into the darkness, so I said, "I'm over here." We walked towards each other, sat down, and talked. I told him that I was a performer and that what happened was absolu...

When he's not busy making TOTALLY spaced out Prog Rock with My Morning Jacket , melding together some Neo-Soul sounds with Monsters of Folk , covering classic George Harrison tunes, or gettin' Funky with The Roots and Erykah Badu ... Jim James has been quietly fine-tuning a loose concept album called Regions of Light and Sound of God . James essentially based the album around a 1929 woodcut book titled Gods' Man , which he managed to morph into a "hazy dream that a fully-realized android or humanoid capable of thought might have when it reminisces about the good ol' days of just being a simple robot." Once he's done touring behind Regions, Jim James plans to re-group with his fellow My Morning Jacket bandmates in April or May to start work[ing] on their upcoming seventh studio album. Jim James self-produced the bulk of his solo record and played nearly every instrument on it; Effortlessly sprinkling in bits of Americana , Jazz-Funk, Disco ,...