The Memphis Horns was a duo formed in 1969 by two members of The Mar-Keys horn section at Stax. The two members were Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love, who started working together at Stax Records in the mid-nineteen sixties.
Love was born in Memphis in 1941. His interest in music began at the age of eleven, when he joined the band at Mount Nebo Baptist Church, where his father was pastor. At the Booker T. Washington High School in South Memphis, he took up the saxophone and played in the school bands. He went on to study at Langston University, Oklahoma, on a band scholarship, finally returning to his home city in 1961 to pursue a career in music.
It didn’t take long for his talent to be recognised. He was signed up by Willie Mitchell as a session player at Royal Studios and was part of the backing band for many of the artists who came to the studio to record, including those on the Hi Records roster.
In 1965, when a vacancy came up at Stax Records, he joined the Mar-Keys brass section, which included Wayne Jackson. The invitation to join Stax was offered largely at the instigation of Al Jackson Jr. who recognised Love’s talent, just as Willie Mitchell had done. The day after he moved to Stax, Love found himself in the studio playing alongside Jackson, working on a song with Rufus Thomas. Another key element of the Memphis Soul sound was now firmly in place. A strong horn section had taken over the role that backing singers usually had in many other studios.
Jackson was born in Memphis in 1941, just three days after Love. He grew up on the far side of the Mississippi in West Memphis. He was given a trumpet at the age of eleven, starting out at the same age as Andrew Love! He played in bands at school and was set on a life in the world of music. He joined the Mar-Keys in 1961 and, on his first day in the studio, played on “Last Night”, which went to number two on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart and was certified gold by the RIAA. He must have thought everything was going to be OK!
Slowly the hits started to accumulate. The list of the early Stax hits that Wayne Jackson played on includes Carla Thomas’ “Gee Whizz” (1961) and Rufus Thomas’ “Walking the Dog” (1963). With Andrew Love now added to the Mar-Keys’ horn section, a series of major hits emerged from the studio: Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour” (1965) and Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”, “Respect”, “Mr Pitiful” and the album “Otis Blue” (all 1965).
Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson 1967
Photo: from the Wayne and Amy Jackson Collection (with kind permission from Amy Jackson)
1965 was a good year, but 1966 was even better, as opportunities arose to play at other studios, as well as Stax. The team at Stax recorded eight more major hits, including three R&B number ones and three gold singles. It is an impressive list for one year: Eddie Floyd’s “Knock On Wood”, Otis Redding’s “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa Sad Song”, “Satisfaction” and “My Lover’s Prayer”, Sam & Dave’s “Hold On I’m Coming”, Carla Thomas’ “B-A-B-Y”, Wilson Pickett’s “634-5789”, and the Mar-Keys’ “Philly Dog”.
In addition, Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love played on several big hits for Atlantic Records, recorded mainly at Muscle Shoals. This pattern continued for the next two years, with further chart success with Sam and Dave and Otis Redding at Stax, and continuing outside contacts with Atlantic, working on recordings with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, King Curtis and Solomon Burke, plus James Carr at Goldwax in Memphis.
One of the highlights of these two years came at the end of 1967, when Otis Redding played at the Monterey Pop Festival in California. There were over fifty thousand people in the audience, mainly White. Booker T & the MGs and the Mar-Keys horn section were there to back Otis Redding. It was the biggest audience most of them had ever played to and the response was extraordinary. Wayne has described in an interview how this performance changed his view of life as a musician. For the first time, he saw that music could be transformative for the listeners and for him too. It could be a life-time career. He saw that the sound that had been created in Memphis could be taken around the world, to people of all races and colours. Perhaps it is no surprise that within a year or two, he and Andrew Love, who was with him in Monterey, set out on a new venture together. A tall Black saxophonist and a shorter White trumpeter, united by their love of music and their incredible talent, were ready to spread the signature horn sound that had been developed at Stax.
Of course, it is also important to note that, just as Booker T and the MGs had done before them, Jackson and Love demonstrated the success that a racially integrated duo could have, at a time when segregation was still common in the southern states.
In 1969, the status quo at Stax was suddenly threatened. Jim Stewart, the co-owner of the company, decided that the Stax session band should play exclusively at Stax. He wanted to give priority to the Stax roster of artists, but for Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love, this was a serious limitation on their ability to maximise their earnings and play with a wide range of successful artists in the Memphis area and beyond. They therefore took the decision to leave Stax and set up as an independent company, to be known as the Memphis Horns. The name may have been inspired by Jerry Wexler, who used to phone Wayne Jackson when he needed a horn section, with the request “Wayne, baby, I need some of them Memphis horns”.
Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson 1992
Photo: Amy Jackson (with kind permission)
They were immediately in demand as studio musicians and as members of touring bands, and a wide range of artists were keen to have them on board. With Love on saxophone and Jackson on trumpet and occasionally adding trombone, they were able to create a rich horn sound in the studio, using multi-tracking to reproduce a sound akin to that of a larger horn section. They also hired additional musicians on occasions when that was required. The Memphis Horns took advantage of the freedom that the new arrangement gave them to work in Royal Studios and American Sound Studio in Memphis, plus FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals and Atlantic Studios in New York. There were plenty of singers who were interested in adding a little Memphis sparkle to their songs.
Foremost amongst them was Elvis Presley, who recorded two of his best singles in 1969, with a contribution from the Memphis Horns. “In the Ghetto” and “Suspicious Minds” showed the serious side of Elvis, after a period of light-hearted film making, that had taken him out of the charts. The songs were recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis, under the guidance of Chips Moman, whom Wayne Jackson knew from his early days at Stax. The first went to number three on the Pop chart, the second to number one, and both were certified platinum by the RIAA.
Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” were also recorded in 1969 at American Sound Studio with Chips Moman producing. Needless to say, Wayne Jackson played on those tracks too.
During the seventies, the Memphis Horns branched out even more, bringing their particular sound to a wide range of music genres and artists. A quick overview shows the importance of their contribution:
In the field of Soul and R&B, they continued to play on recordings by the big stars at Stax, including Isaac Hayes, Eddie Floyd, Rufus Thomas and William Bell. At Royal Studios they worked with Al Green, Denise LaSalle, Ann Peebles, O.V. Wright and Otis Clay. At American and other studios further afield, they worked with the Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and Delaney & Bonnie. Two UK artists called on their talents whilst recording in the USA, Lulu in 1970 for “Melody Fair” and Rod Stewart in 1975 for “Atlantic Crossing”. From the field of folk music came Buffy St. Marie, from the Blues world came B.B. King and Little Milton.
In the mid-seventies, however, the demand for their services slowed, as musical tastes changed, and horns started to go out of favour. Their solution was to focus more on live performances, which meant joining touring bands. Of course, the more time that they spent on the road, the less time they had for studio work. They just weren’t available, so producers gradually stopped calling on them. They found work as individuals and sometimes as a duo, playing with Steven Stills, Rod Stewart, and the Doobie Brothers amongst others.
Wayne Jackson moved to Nashville around this time and joined Marty Robbins’ touring band, working mainly on the road for several years. When Robbins played the Grand Ole Opry, Jackson became the first ever horn player to play on the show. In 1978, Andrew put out an instrumental album recorded with friends called “Memphis Horns II”.
Things took a turn for the worst in 1982, when Robbins died suddenly following a heart attack; there was no work in the pipeline and no immediate prospects. Wayne Jackson decided to make an album of his own, just as Andrew Love had done a few years earlier. He wrote ten new songs and began recording them with the help of several friends. Perhaps for the first time, Jackson took on the challenge of singing too! Unfortunately, the project stalled and the album, “Wayne Jackson and The Memphis Horn Band”, did not get the expected release.
Then, out of the blue, a call came from an unlikely source, the UK singer Peter Gabriel, who was recording in New York and wanted the Memphis Horns to play on a song called “Sledgehammer”. Andrew Love was working in Dallas, so Wayne Jackson went to the session without his colleague. Mark Rivera was on sax, in place of Andrew Love.
Peter Gabriel described the impact that Jackson had on the recording in a radio interview on WMMR in July 1986: “It was really passionate and exciting… Wayne Jackson, who plays on that track, was also with Otis Redding and was touring with him when I saw them in London. So that was a thrill for me, just to get a whole lot of fan stories. But I think the song was more influenced by many of those Stax and Atlantic tracks rather than Otis particularly.” (Transcribed by Fred Tomsett in White Shadow fanzine). The success of that single, released in 1986, led to further offers and suddenly things were back on track. The Memphis Horns toured with Jimmy Buffett, then Joe Cocker and finally Robert Cray. They also played on five Robert Cray albums, as studio work took off too.
Buddy Guy, Willie Nelson, U2, Roy Orbison, Joe Cocker, Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Winwood, Billy Joel: just some of the names that feature in the list of artists for whom the Memphis Horns added that little bit of Memphis sparkle in the eighties and nineties.
In 1992, the duo found time to make another recording of their own, an album that they named “Flame Out”. It was produced by Terry Manning, who had worked at Stax and Ardent Studios in Memphis. Manning also played guitar on the album, which, in the opinion of Steve Kurtz in his AllMusic review, contains “some of the strongest instrumentals to come out of Memphis since ‘Green Onions’”. One of the best tracks is a version of Al Green’s hit “Let’s Stay Together”, with Andrew Love taking the lead on tenor sax.
Throughout his career, Wayne Jackson had written songs. He set up a publishing company, in the hope the songs would be successful and in 1999 he hit the target, when he co-wrote a song called “Christmas Can’t Be Very Far Away” with Roger Cook. Amy Grant took the song into the charts, and Mr Jackson had his first gold disc as a songwriter.
Sadly, Andrew Love was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2002, and he retired in 2004. The Memphis Horns had played together on fifty-two singles that went to number one in the charts and on eighty-three releases that achieved gold or platinum certification. It adds up to a magnificent contribution, that fully justifies the presentation of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award on 11th February 2012, just two months before Andrew Love died at the age of seventy. Al Bell, who became the co-owner of Stax, summed up Andrew Love’s musical ability in a memorable tribute:
“I love saxophone players, and I have many saxophone players I admire and hold in high esteem. But I have never heard a saxophone player who affects and penetrates me like Andrew Love. It was the spirit in him, and you could feel it in the music. He could arouse your deepest emotions, but he would do it gently, softly. It was like he was making love to your soul.” (Los Angeles Times, 2012).
The Memphis Horns were only the second backing group ever to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. They had already been inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2008. Later, in 2017, they were inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
Wayne Jackson had received Andrew Love’s blessing to carry on under the Memphis Horns banner after Love’s retirement. He had teamed up with first Tom McGinley and later Jack Hale. He and his wife Amy had moved back to Memphis in 2010, after fourteen years in Nashville. During this period, he worked on Neil Young’s beautiful album “Prairie Wind” in 2005, and then on the Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris album “All the Roadrunning” in 2006. Later he worked with Andrew Jon Thomson, Buddy Guy, the Raconteurs, Jack White and Alicia Keys, amongst many others.
When his health started to decline, Wayne Jackson continued giving his time and energy to promoting the music he loved. He conducted special tours of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and wrote a set of three books about his life in music, which he called “In My Wildest Dreams”. Wayne Jackson died in Memphis in June 2016.
Wayne Jackson 2014
Photo: Amy Jackson (with kind permission)
As a young boy in West Memphis, on the edge of the cotton belt, he no doubt dreamed of a successful life in music. It probably turned out even better than he had imagined it.
But the story isn’t quite complete. In 2017 Amy Jackson was told that the recordings of her husband’s 1982 album “Wayne Jackson and The Memphis Horn Band” had resurfaced, thirty-five years on. An album duly appeared in 2019 on Skytone Records, with a new name: “The Lost Nashville Sessions”, with Wayne Jackson singing on the track “Abandoned Heart”. It is a final fitting tribute to a true icon of Memphis Soul.
Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love have both commented on the special nature of their work together. They have stressed the way in which their respective tones blended into a distinctive sound:
“It was like magic. His individual tone and mine blended in a certain way that was unique. You can’t make that kind of stuff happen. It was fate.” (Wayne Jackson)
And it was clear from the start to Mr Jackson that this combination was going to work:
“The first time I heard Andrew was at the Manhattan Club in Memphis with the Willie Mitchell Band. I knew we would be perfect together. He had a big tone, and I had a big tone. I knew that they would blend in the most natural, beautiful way.”
Andrew Love has also credited Otis Redding as a major contributor to the Memphis horn sound. In Love’s early days at Stax, Otis had used the term “ensambos” to describe the sound he wanted the horn section to create. It was made by a combination of three instruments. A trumpet and a saxophone played in unison, with another sax adding a harmony. Love and Jackson went on to develop the idea further, doubling the first two instruments and adding a trombone line. The sound was gradually enriched. It became the trademark sound of the Memphis Horns and was a key element in the Signature Sound of Memphis Soul. Wayne Jackson had a collection of eight trumpets, for which he used a Mendez II mouthpiece. Andrew Love had two saxophones and a flute.
Did Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love have a favourite song amongst all the hundreds on which they played? I suspect that they did. In December 1967 they played on Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” sessions and were then due to fly with Otis and the Bar-Kays to the concert in Madison, Wisconsin. Instead of flying to Wisconsin, they stayed in Memphis to finish the overdubs on the song, which probably saved their lives. (Source: Wayne Jackson, Interview with Piers Beagley for the EIN).
It is hard to think of anyone who made a bigger contribution to the signature sound of Memphis than Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson. They were there at the beginning, Wayne at Stax and Andrew at Hi, as Soul music began to develop. They pooled their talents from 1965, working at all the main studios in Memphis and further afield. When first Stax and then Hi Records closed, they took the Memphis Horns on the road. They played in California and in New York and many places in between.
You will hear them on a good number of Memphis Soul tracks, and on many other records too!
[Author’s Note: I would like to thank Amy Jackson for help with details of this chapter and for providing some excellent copyrighted photos]
