My Morning Jacket will release their  sixth studio album this spring, entitled “Circuital.”

In celebration of the forthcoming full-length, the band will give away six weekly downloads beginning March 3rd. The first five downloads will be live songs taken from each night of their week at New York’s Terminal 5 in October of 2010. On the sixth week, the band will offer up a brand new song from the new album.

“Circuital” was recorded in Louisville, KY and Nashville, TN, and was co-produced by frontman Jim James and Tucker Martine (R.E.M., Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists). While in Louisville, the birthplace of the band and where three fifths of the guys are from, they recorded in the unique environment of a gymnasium inside of a church. They laid down almost everything live and allowed room for spontaneity.

In addition to getting reacquainted with their roots, the guys opted for a loose and warm production style for the album. The result is yet another reinvention of their sound that both forges new ground and maintains the distinct spirit of My Morning Jacket’s previous work.

Head to www.mymorningjacket.com to sign up for all six songs now and immediately receive the first song taken from their first night at Terminal 5.

My Morning Jacket Tour Dates:
04-17 Lexington, KY – Memorial Coliseum (University of Kentucky)
05-20-22 Gulf Shores, AL – Hangout Festival
06-02-05 Ozark, AR – Wakarusa Festival
06-02-05 Hunter, NY – Mountain Jam
06-09-12 Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Festival
06-30 – 07-03 Quincy, CA – High Sierra Music Festival

By Lee Zimmerman

Tough, tenacious and unwavering in her determination, Shelby Lynne doesn’t mince words.

That’s especially true when she’s describing the trajectory that began when she unveiled her new album, “Tears, Lies & Alibis,” to Lost Highway, the record company that she had been contracted to. To her dismay — and disgust — they promptly rejected it, insisting she employ a big-name producer. Lynne responded by giving notice of her intention to release the record on her own, and promptly went about creating her own label, Everso Records, as its springboard.

Sassy and soulful, yet surprisingly introspective, it eschews the fussy arrangements that occasionally cluttered her earlier efforts. The settings are deliberately stripped down, owing more to genuine sentiment than a slicker sound.

Of course, anyone who’s followed Lynne’s career over the past couple of decades knows that she’s never been hesitant to follow her muse, no matter what direction it takes her. Her albums have veered from traditional country and pure pop to Americana, jazz, swing, soul and blues.

Even after her big breakthrough, the aptly titled “I Am Shelby Lynne” released in 2000, she’s never stopped experimenting in her quest to fulfill her own artistic ambitions. At the same time, she’s managed to retain a fierce following and garner the accolades of the industry in general, affirmed by the fact she won the Country Music Association Horizon Award early on, and, somewhat belatedly, a Best New Artist Grammy, as well.

Goldmine had the opportunity to speak with Shelby and elicit her reaction to becoming newly independent.

You’ve always seemed intent on pursuing your own muse.
Shelby Lynne: I haven’t had any choice. If I’m making music, how can I make something I don’t believe in? At the end of the day, I’ve been given the privilege of the greatest thing on Earth. I get to sing for a living, and there are people out there who want to hear it, and by God, I’m going to make the best records I can make and continue to make people happy. That’s the goal. “What is she?” Well, hopefully consistently good. You tell them that.

What was the final straw that made you decide you had no choice other than to sever ties with Lost Highway?
Lynne: As soon as I knew that Lost Highway wasn’t going to put out the record and I was able to walk away with the record, my business partner, manager and I said, “Let’s do this!” I mean, I certainly was not going to have another record deal. I’m over it, and it’s really not that hard.

Did you understand what the label wanted you to do?
Shelby Lynne: When you start thinking about Shelby Lynne singing about Airstream trailers (as referenced in a song on the new album), I guess they may have had a point. But you know, they can kiss my ass; I really don’t care. I have a boatload of people out there who really do want to hear what I have to say about Airstream campers, and I’ve come a long way, and it’s a beautiful thing. It’s not all about the pretty stuff. We can slick them up and make them pretty, but does that really make you want to drink whiskey and have a cold one and say, “Damn, that makes me feel something?”

So does that mean if a record label came along now and gave you a terrific offer, you wouldn’t even consider it?
Shelby Lynne: Hell no. I don’t give a damn about that. I just want to make money… and for you not to make any! (chuckles) Those days are gone. It’s time for all of us to take the music back and make a living.

It appears you’re really fed up with the record business machine. What’s at the root of your frustration?
Shelby Lynne: It’s the fact that they have all that money and they don’t want to put out records that are good. They want to put out records that will sell. It’s time for me to move on from that big machine, you know?

Nevertheless, aren’t you worried about the difficulties of going it alone?
Lynne: You just hire people to do it, and I’ve hired some good people to do that. I make the decisions, and they do the work. You say, “Well, let’s see who’s the best, let’s ask around, let’s see who so-and-so knows and who does work for them,” and then, all of a sudden, boom, somebody’s right there.

You get a plan, you throw it together and you start working. You have direct communication with everybody, every day, and that’s something you don’t get in a record company… There are a lot of people out there making music in an independent way, and they still have a great following. I’d like to join that club.

What are the advantages for you in this new setup… other than the fact that you control your own destiny?
Lynne: I know exactly what’s going on, who’s doing what, where the money’s going, is it getting in their hot little hands? And it feels great.

It’s impossible to be an artist like me on a major label and ever, ever, ever make a living on making records. You never get a chance to recoup. So that’s why I made this decision. Maybe now I can make a living selling records.

I’ve always made a living on the road and other kinds of things, like movies and licensing. But now my music is actually getting into the hands of someone who actually wants to hear a Shelby Lynne record. I feel better about getting this record heard than any other record I’ve done, because I’m in charge of it. I’m touching on all areas that I’ve never been included in before.

So is all this down to the fact that you’re finally in control of your own destiny?
Lynne: I think I know exactly where I’m going. I’ve taken the trip. It’s just now I’m writing the checks. I’m happy with the decision. I don’t have a problem making all the decisions. The only difference is I don’t have to wait on somebody to return my calls. That is a good thing.

How is it working out so far?
Lynne: You know what’s crazy? Everybody that I’ve met and everybody that’s signed on to do this thing with me, it’s like a whole different animal in just the way you can get things done and not have to go through countless phone calls and e-mails. I can actually get an answer in a day. I say, “I want to do this, so let’s call somebody who can get it done, and how much does it cost, and here we go.” It’s really so much easier!

And you’re not worried that you might have bitten off more than you can chew?
Lynne: I’m not concerned about any of that. No, no, no. I have a consistent career and I’ve worked very hard for my name. I have a loyal base and it grows day by day. I’ve been doing it for 20 years, so it’s time for a break from the corporate machine that can really allow you to be unhappy if you let it.

By Chris M. Junior

Elvis Presley had Colonel Tom Parker, The Beatles had Brian Epstein and The Jayhawks had Charlie Pine.

Even some longtime Jayhawks fans might not know much about Pine, who was the alt-country band’s manager during its early days. Like Parker and Epstein did for Presley and the Fab Four, respectively, Pine played a key role in helping his act build toward a long recording career. For The Jayhawks, the foundation was the Minneapolis band’s Pine-produced, self-titled debut album, released in 1986 on Bunkhouse Records.

Only 2,000 vinyl copies of “The Jayhawks” (a.k.a. The Bunkhouse Album) were originally pressed. But on May 18, Lost Highway will release the album on CD for the first time ever, and the CD version will include a booklet with photos of the band from that era as well as a new essay by Jayhawks founder Mark Olson.

Olson recently checked in from Norway to talk about his memories of Pine, the recording of “The Jayhawks” and the Minneapolis music scene around that time.

In writing the essay for the reissue and revisiting this early period of your music career, what did you rediscover about yourself and the band that maybe you had forgotten about or didn’t realize at the time?
Mark Olson: When they asked me to write something, I really thought about it for a while. And I basically recalled this manager of ours and what a crazy character he was and how we had kind of lost touch with each other. I thought that would be the best thing to write about because it’s hard to write about, “Oh, the guitars sounded this way and the vocals sounded this way, and we rehearsed up in this space.” I thought that the angle of how people form bands and what mechanisms are involved, when you start out with having a manager – that was kind of interesting, and I had not thought about that for a while.

The Minneapolis music scene of the mid-1980s was quite fertile – and diverse, too. Given the country-leaning sound of The Jayhawks, did that make it tougher for the band to get gigs and sell that first album in and around the city?
Olson: Wow, that’s a pretty pertinent question because we were on the outside with that stuff there. I think one of the reasons both [fellow singer/guitarist] Gary [Louris] and I were attracted to country or folk and that kind of music was because the other stuff was pretty well taken up. I mean, I wouldn’t want to try to get up and compete with Husker Du, The Replacements and Soul Asylum in the loud, rocking department. They had it; there wasn’t any room.

So we started down this different avenue, and it didn’t go over so well in the rock clubs to start with because that’s where we started [playing]. There was kind of a blues/folk scene in a place called the West Bank, which was in a different part of town than the rock clubs, and that’s where we were able to get gigs. We started to do three sets a night and work our way up to the weekends over there, and we ended up playing enough that we could keep improving. When things were going very well over there … and we generated enough excitement, our manager decided, “It’s time for us to make a record,” and that’s what we did.

We didn’t really get going in the rock scene until a little later, and in fact, we never really were a top draw until we came back from California, [after] we did the “Hollywood Town Hall” record. To me, that isn’t anything other than we were trying to do something different, and it was a little bit out of time and a little bit not with the time. But I think that serves any group or musician well in the long run versus doing what a lot of other people are doing in the same time and place.

In your essay for the reissue, you write about Charlie Pine as a man of many talents. As the producer of the first Jayhawks album, was Pine hands-on, hands-off or a little bit of both, depending on the particular song?
Olson: He was definitely hands-off in the way that he really liked the band. When we were playing well, that guy was happy. Basically, he got us in the studio and said, “Go.” It’s like everyone’s first record: You go in there, you set up and you play just like you play it live. Obviously, you can hear that in the tempos – it’s like a rocket taking off (laughs). I sat down [recently] to relearn a couple of the songs, and I started to play along with “Falling Star,” and it’s so fast.

So that’s what we did. We were hyped, and we just cranked them out. And I don’t think we did any overdubs. I can’t really remember that; I think it’s basically live. The whole process was a little mystifying to me. [Pine] was in the studio, and he picked the tracks he wanted to use, and we added a couple of things. He wasn’t barking out orders or anything, but he was definitely in charge as far as, “OK, we’re going to use this track.”

Describe Control Sound, the Minneapolis facility where the album was recorded. Was it a legit studio, or was it an ordinary room with equipment in it?
Olson: It was a regular studio, but it was very small. There was a control room and a [tracking] room. We were all in the same room, and they stuck the amps off in various bathrooms. They had isolation booths for Gary and me, so we were playing and singing at the same time.

[Pine] found that studio. I never heard of it before or sense, to tell you the truth. It was in a neighborhood by the Mississippi River that I never spent time in before or since.

The album cover is similar to that of the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album. Talk about the house that’s featured on the cover and what you remember from the photo shoot.
Olson: That’s actually in another strange topographical area in Minneapolis: Nicollet Island. It’s right in downtown Minneapolis. … There are a couple of old buildings that are now restaurants, but there’s also a little hidden neighborhood back there. It was sort of a hippie neighborhood, kind of an alternate lifestyle neighborhood, where everything was rundown and almost spooky. Since then, I think it’s been fixed up a little bit, but back then, we were looking for something that, I guess, said country-rock (laughs).

I just remember it being a fun day. We had hired the best photographer for music in the city, and it was very exciting: We were doing our album.

Was Pine there directing how you guys should look?
Olson: He never directed so much as he encouraged. That was his thing. What I hope I got across in the essay is what went on between us and Charlie, there was a level of personal enthusiasm coming from him that I haven’t really seen since or really expect to see again.

Do you still have any copies of the original vinyl pressing at home?
Olson: I believe I have two copies that have been opened and played at various times. I run into [other] copies in foreign countries. … Every now and then someone will come up with one and ask me to sign it, or if I go to a record collector [show], I’ll find it in the bin, and it’s pretty high-priced.

So, there are no sealed copies anywhere in your basement or attic?
Olson: No (laughs).