Love Light Orchestra – “Love and Happiness” (audio) (premiere)

Acclaimed Memphis vocalist John Nemeth‘s latest project sees him joining forces with some of Tennessee’s finest soul musicians. The ten-piece collective, called the Love Light Orchestra, brings their audience back to the era of 1960s R&B.

Complete with guitar, bass, drums, keys, and a horn quintet, the band achieves what they set out to do in their mission statement with Nemeth’s passionate vocals steering them home. This much is indicative on their latest single, a fiery cover of Al Green’s “Love & Happiness”. In their interpretation of the song, the Love Light Orchestra rearranges it into a swinging, blues-laden affair that allows the entire band to show off their chops.

The band was co-founded by Marc Franklin, a song arranger and trumpeter. Franklin tells PopMatters that “Teenie’s guitar line from ‘Love and Happiness’ always reminded me of the intro to ‘Fables of Faubus’ by Charles Mingus. So I kinda built the arrangement based on making that guitar line swing, and I gave what is normally a quiet and loose intro, a big Bobby Bland-style treatment. The rest just fell into place.”

Love Light Orchestra’s self-titled debut album releases on 17 November via Blue Barrel Records. It was produced in a live setting by Matt Ross-Spang (Margo Price, Jason Isbell) that fully captures the soaring spirit of the band.