Jeffrey Lee Puckett of the Courier-Journel (Louisville) profiles one of the country's rising rock bands, My Morning Jacket.

The SF Chronicle talks to Michael Penn about his new album, Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947.

"I write these songs about broken people, about being a broken person," he says. "While I wrote, I thought about my father, who fought in World War II. And whether I could put my life back together after being in a horrific war. And about the early days of Hollywood, where the main cash crop is artifice."

And about the label he co-founded with wife Aimee Mann and manager Michael Hausman:

Amy had just gotten out of her major-label contract and we started talking about creating a musicians' collective since there is power in number. We're hoping it will become an artist-run mutual support system. Songwriters don't have a union, so this could really help them -- and the music industry in general."

Coolfer hasn't referenced a blog in Sunday Reading until now, but an entry at Bubblegum Machine, a favorite MP3 blog, calls for a full quotation. It's for the song "Helpless" by Sainte Marie.

"A version of the Neil Young song with Ry Cooder guitar and epic production from husband Jack Nitzsche. Lovely stuff.

Buffy Sainte Marie frequently appeared in Sesame Street in the 1970s, co-starring with roller-skating muppet Big Bird, an androgynous muppet with the kind of passive-zealous demeanor not seeen since the September recruitment visit from the Campus Crusade for Christ."