George Harrison may not have influenced
My Morning Jacket's knotty, psychedelic Americana as much as other songwriters, but his spirituality did find its way into the band's work, from the catharsis of
At Dawn to the Biblical metaphors in "Gideon." Appropriately,
Jim James makes his solo debut with a collection of
Harrison songs, using little more than his vocals and acoustic guitar to re-create the source material. This is a quiet, scaled-down affair, with no traces of
Phil Spector's lush orchestrations or
Harrison's infamous slide guitar. Instead,
James wraps himself in reverb -- a nod to the echoing production of
All Things Must Pass, perhaps, but also a reminder that this EP was recorded in 2001, the same year that spawned the reverb-heavy
At Dawn -- and multi-tracks his own voice into towers of fragile harmonies. "My Sweet Lord," once a communal hymn, is stripped of its choral arrangement and turned into a solitary prayer, while
the Beatles' "Love You To" leaves its Indian homeland in favor of the swampy American backwoods.
Tribute To remains reverent despite those unique touches, however, and
Jim James (or Yim Yames, or whatever he's calling himself nowadays) sounds fairly fantastic throughout. ~ Andrew Leahey