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Mountain Stage Remembers Andrew Love

The Memphis Horns in 1976, left to right: Andrew Love, James Mitchell, Jack Hale, Wayne Jackson and Lewis Collins.
Gilles Petard
/
Redferns
The Memphis Horns in 1976, left to right: Andrew Love, James Mitchell, Jack Hale, Wayne Jackson and Lewis Collins.

Influential saxophonist Andrew Love died Monday at age 70. When Robert Cray came to Mountain Stage in November 1999 to support his soul-influenced album Take Your Shoes Off, he achieved the most authentic sound possible by hiring Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns. Host Larry Groce shares this memory.

Andrew Love visited Mountain Stage with Wayne Jackson as part of The Robert Cray Band in 1999. It was immediately apparent why the Memphis Horns are so celebrated. How one trumpet and one sax could change a sound so much was a small miracle, the perfect example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. Cray's rendition of "Consequences" (written by siblings Bonnie and Kevin Hayes) is a perfect example of their complementary style and capability. As Cray notes in this intro, it's "up and funky!"

Long after the show was over, at the end of the night in the hotel bar, we saw the two of them sitting side by side and sharing a laugh. After all those years, they still seemed to enjoy each other's company. It was a beautiful thing.

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