MORNING GLORY
“I wanted to make a guitar that felt super classic, and it didn’t matter if somebody knew who I was or not”
Jim James is the founding member of My Morning Jacket, now 23 years into a psychedelic road trip through the varied sonic terrain of America’s alt-rock scene. Everything from late-era Beach Boys to Bob Dylan and Marc Bolan is referenced in the band’s eclectic sound, which has journeyed a long way over two decades. A common thread that runs throughout is James’s plaintive vocal and warm, anthemic guitar lines that shimmer behind a mirage of spring reverb. Now, James has been honoured with a signature model ES-335 that caught our interest with its pragmatic, everyman spec and an early 70s vibe that should appeal to a far wider number of players than James’s fanbase alone.
“We joked about that a lot,” Jim says with disarming frankness. “I wanted to just create a guitar where people could be like, ‘Who the fuck is Jim James? I don’t really care, I just love this guitar.’ Kind of like the Barney Kessel guitar or the Johnny A. one, I just wanted to make a guitar that hopefully felt super classic, where somebody would just be so stoked when they saw it that it
