Andrew Love RIP

The Vinyl Word raises a glass to Andrew Love, tenor saxophone player, one half of the Memphis Horns and a key player on numerous great Stax sides by the likes of Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Sam and Dave and many others, who has died aged 70.

The Memphis Horns were central to the Stax sound and the band emerged from the Mar-Keys, who had one of the first Stax hits with Last Night. Along with trumpeter Wayne Jackson, he featured on such great Memphis recordings as Dock Of The Bay, Soul Man, Hold On I’m Comin’, Try A Little Tenderness, Think, Born Under A Bad Sign, Mustang Sally, Land Of 1000 Dances and Knock On Wood. After Stax the Memphis Horns recorded for Hi, including Al Green's Let's Stay Together, and backed numerous other artists, including Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond and James Taylor. In recent years I saw the Memphis Horns, including Love and Jackson, at Porretta a number of times and without fail they produced the authentic Stax sound. In February of this year they received a Lifetime Achievement Award but by this time Love, who had been suffering from Alzheimer's, was too unwell to attend. Here's the story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/apr/13/memphis-horns-saxophonist-andrew-love-dies/?CID=happeningnow