Back in April, we mentioned a new John Prine tribute album, Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows, which features John Prine cover songs by Conor Oberst, Josh Ritter, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, the Avett Brothers, Lambchop and 8 other artists, including My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, aka Yim Yames.

Well, last night on the Late Show with David Letterman, Prine performed a live version of “All the Best” — the song the MMJ frontman contributed to the tribute — with James himself as his duet partner.

Watch the pair take on the second track off Prine’s Grammy Award-winning 1991 album, The Missing Years, here or below:

The Roots dropped an album cover, release date, and tracklist for their forthcoming record, How I Got Over, just two days ago, but one of the LP’s indie-guesting tracks has already hit the Web. Dubbed “Dear God 2.0,” Roots MC Black Thought rhymes over a moderately reworked version of Monsters of Folk’s “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.),” which features My Morning Jacket’s Jim James singing choruses about the mysteries of spiritual faith.

Though there’s no question that James — who originally penned the instant classic melody for his side project with Conor Oberst and M. Ward — and the Roots are a perfect, soulful match here, I was hoping for a more drastically different take on the tune. Either way, the Joanna Newsom-featuring track, “Right On,” and rumored Dirty Projectors cameos should throw a few welcome curveballs our way shortly.

Check out “Dear God 2.0” below, as well as the full HIGO tracklist:

Perhaps it’s been said before, but somebody needs to nominate the Roots’ ?uestlove for a “Best Musician on Twitter” prize. If only for his revealing Twitlonger post on the business of TV show walk-on song music publishing and epic live-tweet from inside Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace gig. So what’s the latest 140-character scoop from our favorite late-night drummer?

“[Y]es indeed we are working hard on #HOWIGOTOVER (first look) mixing the Joanna Newsome Jawn,” Questo cryptically posted yesterday. Twelve hours later he dropped a teaser video from the studio where Newsom’s “The Book of Right-On” is apparently being sampled. This all sounded very exciting, of course, but what’s he building in there? Entertainment Weekly (via Pitchfork) has the scoop: Joanna Newsom and My Morning Jacket singer Jim James will provide guest performances for different songs on the forthcoming Roots album, How I Got Over, due out this summer.

Something tells me that the Dirty Projectors might make an appearance on this record too.

Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, M. Ward, and Jim James may be busy attending to their other projects this spring/summer (Bright Eyes, She and Him, and My Morning Jacket, respectively), but the Monsters of Folk aren’t done spreading the word about their eponymous debut LP just yet. In addition to a contest-winning music video to their soulful single, “Dear God,” the trio have uploaded a new semi-animated video by Lauri Faggioni, who has directed similarly styled work for the likes of Devendra Banhart, Iron & Wine, and Bright Eyes in the past.

Kevin Ratterman of VHS or Beta produced this new release from Follow the Train, a Louisville, KY based 6-piece led by Dennis Sheridan. The album, Mercury, hit the internet this week via My Morning Jacket singer Jim James, aka Yim Yames, and former MMJ member Johnny Quaid’s Removador Recordings, a brand new label we mentioned earlier this year.

Based on the few songs I’ve streamed so far, this record is a huge step forward from their previous full-length, A Breath Of Sigh. Fans of Wilco, Bright Eyes, M. Ward, or many more post-alt-country (just a genre in my head) acts should have no problem making space on their iPod for Follow the Train. No need to wade through my opinions, though, as Removador are offering a free stream of Mercury below:

We were just talking about Jim James’ recent work with NOLA’s own Preservation Hall Jazz Band when, lo and behold, an email has arrived announcing that James’ band My Morning Jacket are heading out on tour with the legendary group.

The MMJ/PHJB tour will kick off on 4/20 in Birmingham, Alabama before trekking through the Southeastern U.S. (including a date at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, of course) and concluding in Columbus, Ohio.

Tour dates for the spring jaunt are listed below, but you may also want to check out the teaser site for the Preservation benefit album that James contributed to, as it includes lots of streaming music, including James’ Yim Yames’ take on “Lousiana Fairytale” (he also recorded a version of “St. James Infirmary”) thataway.

My Morning Jacket & Preservation Hall Jazz Band Spring Tour Dates:

As previously reported last fall, Tom Waits, Andrew Bird, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Steve Earle, Dr. John, Pete Seeger, and thirteen more of our favorite artists visited New Orleans, LA recently to record a benefit album for and with the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band. We didn’t have many details at the time, but now the release date is approaching (Feb 16) and the album’s distributor has posted a great teaser site, complete with a few streaming songs, video, pictures, and lots more.

We already knew that Tom Waits had recorded the earliest known recorded Mardi Gras song, “Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing,” but we now have the full track list as well. Check it out below and click here to stream full songs by Jim James, aka Yim Yames, Jason Isbell, Del McCoury, Buddy Miller, and Ani DiFranco. (There are also sound clips from Andrew Bird, Steve Earle, and others in the teaser video.)

Official Preservation Track List:

It’s hard to imagine why any band with a decent following would not start a record label these days. Boutique labels are a great way to tout, as Removador Recordings says, “some of the coldest music you ain’t never heard!” Not to mention they’re all the rage (Ryan Adams’ Pax Am, Jack White’s Third Man, and Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear’s Terrible Records, to name a few).

Removador Recordings and Solutions is the name of a brand new record label formed by My Morning’s Jim James and his first cousin/former MMJ guitarist Johnny Quaid. Speakers in Code reports that James and Quaid made the announcement on the official MMJ site, oddly calling it a “web venture” that will “offer consumers a rich new way of web-based living; specializing in music purchase, production, and facilitation, as well as problem solving, sports, rehab, recreation, vacation planning, vaccinations, ghosts, and social networking.”

As previously reported, Tom Waits was in New Orleans, LA recently recording a benefit track for and with the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as well as a song for the next volume of Anti’s sea shanty series. Well, now we have the former track’s name, a stellar list of collaborators for the upcoming album, and a not so surprising release date.

According to PR Newswire, Waits collaborated on the song “Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing”, the earliest known recorded Mardi Gras song (abstract version from MMW and John Scofield here), for Preservation, a benefit album due out on Feb. 16 of next year, aka Fat Tuesday.

That would’ve been enough for a minor news update on the project, but check out some of the other artists contributing to the album: