The Memphis Horns -

The Memphis Horns were an American brass/woodwinds ensemble that originally served as a house act at Stax Records. As an autonomous unit, the band debuted with an album on Cotillion in 1970, followed by the 1972 album Horns for Everything on Million Records Inc. Between 1976 and 1979, the band released four albums on RCA.

Members: Wayne Jackson (trumpet), Andrew Love (tenor saxophone), Ed Logan (tenor saxophone), Lewis Collins (trombone), Jack Hale (trombone), James Mitchell (baritone saxophone), Tom McGinley (baritone saxophone), Jimmy Sharp (trombone), Roger Hopps (trumpet), Floyd Newman (baritone saxophone), Ben Cauley (trumpet), Jack Hale, Jr. (trumpet, french horn)

Background

The Memphis Horns formed in 1969 in Memphis when trumpeter Wayne Jackson and tenor saxophonist Andrew Love left Stax Records to work as an independent horn section.

Jackson was born Wayne Lamar Jackson on Nov. 24, 1941, and grew up in West Memphis, Arkansas. His mother gave him a trumpet at age eleven, and he studied the instrument in school bands. As a West Memphis High School senior, Jackson joined the Royal Spades, a Memphis R&B group that became the Mar-Keys. Satellite Records released the Mar-Keys instrumental “Last Night” in 1961, with Jackson on trumpet. The single reached No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart.

Love was born Andrew Maurice Love on Nov. 21, 1941, in Memphis to Mount Nebo Baptist pastor Roy Love and church organist Dolly Love. He learned trumpet at age eleven in the church band, then took up saxophone at Booker T. Washington High School. Love played lead tenor in the school combo and spent a year at Langston University in Oklahoma on a music scholarship. He returned to Memphis for club dates and Hi Records sessions with bandleader Willie Mitchell. Love moved across the street from Mitchell’s studio so Mitchell could reach him for short-notice sessions.

Drummer Al Jackson Jr. recommended Love to Stax in 1965 when the label needed a tenor saxophonist. Wayne Jackson first heard Love with the Willie Mitchell Band at the Manhattan Club. The pair recorded together the next day on a Rufus Thomas session. Jackson and Love worked at Stax with baritone saxophonist Floyd Newman and other rotating horn players behind Thomas, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Eddie Floyd. The pair also accepted sessions at Royal, American Sound, FAME in Muscle Shoals, and Atlantic in New York. Jackson and Love joined the Stax/Volt Revue in Europe in 1967 and accompanied Redding at the Monterey International Pop Festival.

Stax co-owner Jim Stewart asked the session players in 1969 to work only for the label. Jackson and Love rejected the restriction and incorporated the Memphis Horns on June 19 of that year. The pair recorded their first album at Sounds of Memphis with Stan Kesler as co-producer and engineer. Cotillion listed the self-titled set among coming releases at the end of January.

Discography: