Bright Eyes : I'm Wide Awake It's Morning

  Alex McManus - Guitar
  Andy LeMaster - Vocals
  Clark Baechle - Drums
  Conor Oberst - Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar, Vocals
  Emmylou Harris - Vocals
  Jake Bellows - Harmonica, Vocals
  Jason Boesel - Drums
  Jesse Harris - Guitar
  Jim James - Vocals
  Maria Taylor - Vocals
  Matt Maginn - Bass
  Mike Mogis - Mandolin, Pedal Steel, Guitar (12 String)
  Nate Walcott - Trumpet
  Nick Walcott - Trumpet
  Nick White - Organ
  Nick White - Organ, Piano, Fender Rhodes
  Tim Luntzel - Bass, Guitar (Bass)

Last time around, Conor Oberst -- who for all intents and purposes, is Bright Eyes -- shoved all of his interests into one long, overstuffed epic, but with the simultaneously I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, he separates the country-rock on the former and the messy modernistic indie rock on the latter, as if to counter the criticisms that he can't focus. I'm Wide Awake is designed as a nakedly honest singer/songwriter album, somewhat inspired by the classics of the genre in the '70s -- he even recruits Emmylou Harris for some harmonies, hoping that some of the Gram Parsons' magic will rub off. Stripped of the careening, dramatic, arrangements of Lifted, Oberst's music seems simpler, and while his voice -- a quavering bleat that's halfway between Feargal Sharkey and the Dead Milkmen's Rodney Anonymous -- is an acquired taste; fans will find this to be his most direct album yet. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

The first of two albums (as in, the first to be laid down on tape) is titled I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning; a country-tinged m‚lange of Conor's finest acoustic songs, featuring guest vocal appearances from Emmylou Harris and Jim James (My Morning Jacket).