Over the years, we’ve hidden in some Harris(on) tweed (Goodwill, Brooks, no matter), and we’ve heeded some Harrison tweets (mainly All Things Must Pass). Combining the two can be disconcerting.  But My Morning Jacket’s Jim James deftly melded with Harrison with the release of his “Tribute to” EP last year.

In “Tribute to” James (under the “Yim Yames” moniker) combined George Harrison songs with his specter-siren vocals (minus the Spector production) in tribute to the solo Beatle.   Beyond Harrison’s stellar songs, we initially drew blanks as to the nexus between the two, but when we heard James’ rendering of My Sweet Lord it came clearer:  James has often spoken spiritual, as did Sir George.  Instances of James’ loftier spiritual side have been heard in the atonement of At Dawn, the biblical references in Gideon, and the lyrics of Look at You (amongst others):  ““We believe in your power, to lead without fear / Not above, in some tower, but here, right down here, with us in this world… / Let me follow you.”

Though only released late last year, James originally recorded “Tribute to” in December 2001 with just acoustic guitar and his standard reverberant vocals on an eight-track reel-to-reel tape recorder just days after Harrison’s passing.  With it, James has provided an unfailingly fitting eulogy to George.

While we enjoyed the entirety of the EP, the one track that particularly ensnared us is Long, Long, Long, a cut off of the Beatles’ 1968 “White Album.”  James’ self-harmonizing on the track is particularly perfect, but too the essence of the song is sifted exactly.  Beatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner wrote of the song that it was “the first of dozens of Harrison love songs that are ambiguous in that he could be singing either to his lady or to his Lord.”  And therein lies another link between the two songwriters.  In his autobiography, I Me Mine, Harrison wrote:  “The ‘you’ in Long, Long, Long is God. I can’t recall much about it except the chords, which I think were coming from Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands – D to E minor, A, and D – those three chords and the way they moved.”

Yin James has similarly aspired and achieved in these tributes to Harrison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcEigFdtm9E