My Morning Jacket members grounded by Louisville

Flip through Louisville's rich music history and you'll find it populated by an unlikely assortment of success stories.

Reach back to the 1950s and '60s and you'll find Hall of Fame vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, celebrated blues singer Helen Humes and Harvey Fuqua, a legend of doo-wop. We've had a million-selling acoustic grunge band (Days of the New) and a million-selling hip-hop group (Nappy Roots).

But an unassuming group of nice guys, the kind you can count on to bring a cold 12-pack to a backyard barbecue, have become in many respects the biggest band Louisville has produced.

My Morning Jacket, which will perform Saturday in Waterfront Park for a crowd expected to reach 10,000, has reached a level of success that still leaves the band blinking in disbelief.

Its new album, "Evil Urges," debuted at No. 9 in June on the Billboard 200, the industry's chart of record sales. The band has recently been on the cover of Spin and Paste magazines and had the lead album review — a four-star rave — in Rolling Stone.

The group headlined the summer's major festivals, sold out New York's Radio City Music Hall in minutes and is selling tickets for a headlining show New Year's Eve at Madison Square Garden — the Madison Square Garden.

The band has been on national television a half-dozen times, including a May appearance on "Saturday Night Live," and was featured in Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown."

"It's just so ... weird, you know?" said singer and songwriter Jim James, falling back for the third or fourth time on the only descriptive he can find to sum up the experience. "Sometimes I just can't believe all of the things we've been able to do, and that I've been able to do."

He tells a story about being invited to a Bill Withers tribute last Saturday in New York's Prospect Park, near where James is now living part-time. He found himself chatting with Withers, singer of "Lean On Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine."

"I'm sitting there talking to Bill Withers, who's one of my all-time favorite singers, and I get to sing a couple of his songs in front of him," James said, still a bit awestruck. "It was out of body. That was a top five experience. To shake his hand was one of the thrills of my lifetime."

Any member of My Morning Jacket — which includes James' fellow Louisvillians Tom Blankenship (bass) and Patrick Hallahan (drums) along with Nashville's Carl Broemel (guitar) and Los Angeles' Bo Koster (keyboards) — could tell a raft of similar stories.

But what's most interesting is between the lines. As big as My Morning Jacket has become, James, Blankenship and Hallahan have never stopped being music fans or counting their blessings.

"They haven't changed at all," said music promoter Billy Hardison, who has been booking shows featuring various MMJ band members since 1992. "If anything, Jim's even more grounded."

Looking for success

My Morning Jacket started not with a bang, but with an echo.

James, Blankenship, Johnny Quaid and J. Glenn started the band in 1998, recording tracks at Quaid's family farm in Shelbyville. They used an old grain silo to record vocals, the natural reverb defining the band's first two albums, "Tennessee Fire" and "At Dawn."

My Morning Jacket was far different from what James had been doing with Month of Sundays, a post-punk band, and unlike anything else in Louisville at the time. On record, the music was dreamy and evocative, with splashes of pop and rock. In concert, MMJ worked hard, performing sets for 25 people that were every bit as crazed as the one it will perform tomorrow.

Most bands wait for success but MMJ went looking for it, traveling the country in a van and eating peanut butter sandwiches while playing every dive bar available. It was a lifestyle that caused Quaid and former keyboardist Danny Cash to leave nearly five years ago. Broemel and Koster replaced them after auditions.

"It starts and ends with a real spiritual passion for wanting to play music for yourself, and wanting to entertain people," said manager Mike Martinovich, who discovered the band when he bought its first two albums at ear X-tacy while traveling. "When you start you really don't know how long it's going to last nor do you have a real gauge for how hard it's going to be.

"For them to be in a band 10 years later and still play with that same exuberance and same sense of `I can't believe I'm able to do this for a living' is inspiring."

Before its third album, 2003's "It Still Moves," My Morning Jacket was signed to ATO Records, an independent subsidiary of RCA Records co-founded by Dave Matthews. The band has since released "Z" (2005), "Okonokos" (2006) and this year's "Evil Urges."

While the band has never lacked for national press — it's consistently mentioned in what seems like every third music magazine — the release of "Evil Urges" has inspired an unprecedented amount. The payoff was first-week sales of more than 50,000 copies, enough to crack Billboard's top 10.

Blankenship's first reaction was "shock," he said. "That's something that always seems unreal and unattainable, the kind of thing that happens to Lil' Wayne but not us," said the bassist. "Secondly, I thought it was sad for the state of music that it doesn't take many records sold to break into the top 10 these days."

MMJ might not be putting up "Thriller" numbers but that isn't the only measure of a band's success, said Hardison, whose Production Simple company is co-producing tomorrow's show with the Louisville Bats.

MMJ has slowly grown its American fan base to the point where it draws big to huge numbers on the road, leading to co-headlining status at festivals such as Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Coachella in the California desert. The band sold out the 6,000-seat Radio City Music Hall in 22 minutes, a rate which promises a packed house in December at Madison Square Garden. At a time when cold, hard CD sales don't tell the whole story, packed houses are crucial.

"The interesting thing is that they're on an indie label and not a lot of bands on indie labels have done more than they've done," said Josh Jackson, editor of Paste. "They can have a long-term career. I think the sky's pretty much the limit."

Grounded in the bluegrass

The sky may be the limit but the key might be blueish grass.

As My Morning Jacket's career has taken them around the world — opening for Pearl Jam in Italy, jamming with Metallica in Tennessee, playing for 100 fans in an English pub — the three Kentuckians always maintain close ties with home.

James only recently began experimenting with living in New York but will also keep a home here. Hallahan and Blankenship are burrowed here. Coming home to Louisville is crucial to their sanity, they said.

"I definitely appreciate it and don't want to take it for granted," James said. "When I'm here I just want to hang out with family and my buddies I've known forever."

"The life that I share with my wife and the relationships that I have with my family and friends here in town are hugely important to me," Blankenship said. "The tough part is finding a good balance between home and work."

You can't be on television every few weeks and not get recognized, however, and all three have been getting a taste of star treatment around town. They all appreciate being appreciated, but none revel in it or are even comfortable.

"It's definitely increased and I'm not really used to that," Hallahan said. "I just signed an autograph the other day for my grandmother, which normally wouldn't count but it was for someone else."