My Morning Jacket

Louisville to Z

Jim James formed My Morning Jacket in Louisville in 1998 to release acoustic songs that his earlier band, Month of Sundays, could not use. The name comes from a discarded coat James found with the letters MMJ on it. The Tennessee Fire (May 1999) became a surprise hit in the Netherlands and Belgium, leading to a European tour. At Dawn (2001) had James recording vocals in a grain silo, and the band signed to ATO in 2002 before It Still Moves (September 2003). Johnny Quaid and Danny Cash left in January 2004, and Bo Koster and Carl Broemel joined. Patrick Hallahan, a friend of James since fourth grade, had been the drummer since 2002.

Z (ATO, October 4, 2005) was their first album with a professional producer, John Leckie, who had worked with Pink Floyd and Radiohead; James said Leckie's outsider perspective was pivotal. Metacritic scores it 90, Pitchfork called it the band's OK Computer and ranked it 146th of the 2000s, Rolling Stone placed it 457th on its 2012 list, and a 2022 WFPK listener poll ranked it first among 2000s albums. Evil Urges (2008) was nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Rock Album, their four-hour Bonnaroo set that year ran 35 songs with Kirk Hammett as a guest, and in October 2010 they played five nights at Terminal 5 in New York, one studio album each night. Circuital (May 31, 2011) and The Waterfall (May 2015, 11 on the Billboard 200) followed, then The Waterfall II (July 10, 2020), My Morning Jacket (October 22, 2021), the Christmas LP Happy Holiday! (November 24, 2023), Is (2025) and the benefit album Peacelands (January 29, 2026).

In 2025 they played Z in full for its twentieth anniversary, at the Hollywood Palladium on August 19 and the Brooklyn Paramount on October 16, with a deluxe edition of alternate versions and demos. The Internet Archive holds 621 of their concerts. Okonokos (2006) is the live album and film from the Fillmore in San Francisco in November 2005.