Jim James ends his solo tour in Ojai, his first area show since 2016

Ten years after a full-band night at the Majestic Ventura Theater, the My Morning Jacket singer plays Hotel El Roblar on Sunday, Dec. 13, as the closing date of his Wowed Out run.

The last time Jim James played this corner of the coast, it was Sept. 29, 2016, at the Majestic Ventura Theater, a big old room on Main Street. His return, a decade on, is about as small as he gets: a Sunday night at Hotel El Roblar in Ojai.

The show is Sunday, Dec. 13, starting at 7 p.m., at the hotel at 122 East Ojai Ave. Tickets are sold through Eventbrite, where the night is billed as Jim James: Solo in Ojai and presented by the Tierra Sol Institute. The listing has Mikaela Davis opening at 7 and James on at 8, and it calls Ojai the last stop and most intimate appearance of his West Coast run.

That run is the Wowed Out tour, his solo acoustic outing, announced in July. Per Jambands, it opens Nov. 28 at the Brown Theatre in his hometown of Louisville and works through Chicago, New York, Boston and Boulder before a Dec. 11 date at Glendale Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. Ojai was added on the end, two nights later.

The tour carries the name of his new record. *Wowed Out* came out Aug. 28 on ATO Records, and it is his first solo album in eight years. Rolling Stone reported that the songs grew out of music he wrote for two film-scoring projects in the early 2010s, reworked into his fourth solo album of original material. Stereoboard noted a second single, "Lost Child," ahead of the release.

A voice built for arenas, in a room where you can hear the guitar strings.

That is the draw here. James spends most of his working life fronting My Morning Jacket, a band whose shows run long and loud and whose singer's reverb-soaked voice is part of the architecture. Alone with an acoustic guitar, the songs have to stand on their own, and so does the voice. A hotel event space in Ojai, rather than a theater, is about as close as an audience can get to that.

It also says something about Ojai. A non-profit curating a solo night with a songwriter of James's standing is the kind of booking that makes the drive from Ventura or Santa Barbara worth it on a Sunday in December.

What has changed since 2016? Then he came through with a band and a full rock show. Now he's carrying new songs, a guitar and a quieter idea of what a Jim James show can be. Mikaela Davis, a harpist and songwriter, is a fitting opener for that kind of night.

Practical notes: the Eventbrite listing runs the evening from 6 to 10 p.m., so arrive early if you want a good seat. Capacity isn't listed, but "most intimate" is the promoter's own phrase, and it is a hotel, not a hall. Don't wait on tickets.

It has been ten years. He's bringing the songs down to their bones, in a town that suits them. Go hear them that way.

Sources: Eventbrite: Jim James: Solo in Ojai, Dec 13 (eventbrite.com); Tierra Sol: Jim James Solo in Ojai (tierrasolojai.org); Jambands: Jim James confirms acoustic dates, shares new single (jambands.com); Rolling Stone: Jim James previews first solo album in eight years with title track 'Wowed Out' (rollingstone.com); Stereoboard: Jim James 'Lost Child' (stereoboard.com); JamBase: Jim James at Hotel El Roblar (jambase.com); Jim James - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Mikaela Davis - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)