Trumpeter Wayne Jackson was the personification of mixed emotions in February when he and his longtime musical partner, saxophonist Andrew Love, were presented a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award for their work over half a century together as the Memphis Horns.

Jackson tearfully acknowledged the music industry accolade for the hundreds of recordings he and Love made in Memphis and elsewhere. They had backed R&B and soul music greats such as Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Sam & Dave and Wilson Pickett, and rock, pop and country luminaries that included Elvis Presley, U2, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Robert Cray and James Taylor.

Jackson’s tears were less about the long-in-coming industry recognition as for the absence that day of Love, who had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for nearly a decade, a fact that his family publicly announced only a few days before the Grammy ceremony.

Love died Thursday from complications of Alzheimer’s, said his wife, Willie. He was 70.

Two weeks ago, Jackson visited Love and posed for a photograph with him and their Grammy.

“The sound we generated was just great,” he said Friday. “Everybody knew it, and we knew we couldn’t do any better, so we just stayed together. It came as natural to us as breathing.”

Advertisement

Love and Jackson performed with more than 30 members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and played on 14 Grammy-winning songs, 52 No. 1 hits and 113 Top 10 singles. Together and individually, they played on 83 gold and platinum records that have sold an estimated 40 million copies.

They produced what sounded like a full horn section, a punchy and meaty attack bigger and thicker than just two instruments should be able to make.

“Stax Records would not have become what it became without them,” Stax co-owner Al Bell said Friday. “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.”

The professional collaboration and lifelong friendship between Love and Jackson — one black, the other white — also came to symbolize hard-won transcendence over racial divisions throughout the South and beyond in the 1960s.

The pair played virtually as one on dozens of hits prominently featuring their work, records that regularly soared into the upper reaches of the pop and R&B sales charts through the 1960s and ’70s.

“If you’ve ever heard the brilliant unison horns that play the starting phrases on records such as ‘Knock on Wood,’ ‘Hold On, I’m Comin” or ‘In the Midnight Hour,’ then you’ve experienced the excitement that the Memphis Horns can stir when opening a song,” fellow Memphis studio stalwart Booker T. Jones said while presenting the lifetime achievement award.

Advertisement

“If you call the Memphis Horns, you know what you’re going to get: solid horn lines and warm, flowing harmonies to accentuate the vocals or highlight the melody,” Jones said.

The Memphis Horns were a staple of much of the music made at Stax Records, the celebrated studio and record company that was one of the most important R&B and soul labels of the 1960s, along with Atlantic and Motown.

The Memphis Horns continued to work together until 2004, when Love’s deteriorating health prompted him to retire.

Upon accepting the recent Grammy honor, Jackson’s voice broke as he said, “I thank and honor my best friend Andrew tonight. I wish he was here.”

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.