Saxobit: Andrew Love

Andrew Love, fifty per cent of the Memphis Horns, has died.

Born in Memphis in 1941, like many of his generation and background, Love's induction into live performance came in church. He left to study in Oklahoma, but returned to Tennessee upon graduation and took a session job with Stax records.

It was here he met Wayne Jackson - the other fifty per cent of the Memphis Horns - and together they would provide a Southern brass kick to almost countless recordings. You can hear their work here:

Al Bell of Stax was generous remembering the Memphis Horns on Friday:

"Stax Records would not have become what it became without them. 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."

Earlier this year, The Memphis Horns were given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys - only the second time backing musicians have actually been treated by proper human beings by the academy.

Love had been living with Alzheimers for over a decade; his death was believed to be linked to this condition. He was 70.

George Galloway creates

What is it with former scourges of Thatcher and light musical theatre?

Yes, it's true: George Galloway really is working on a musical about Dusty Springfield:

The star who shines brighter than all the rest on this trip down memory lane is Dusty Springfield - as fresh today as a spring field should be. And, as it happens, one of the many projects on which I'm working - with Scots writer Ron McKay - is a stage Musical, eponymously entitled Dusty.

Angels who read the Daily Record - and I know there are many - urgently required.

If Ron McKay is doing the writing, and the music is coming from the back catalogue, presumably Galloway's role is to come up with the dance routines?

It's not entirely clear if Galloway is aware of Dusty The Musical, an, erm, musical about the life of Dusty Springfield. It was on Dragon's Den, although I suspect George wouldn't be a big fan of Jones and Paphitis trying to outbid each other to reshackle the working classes.

Still, maybe one will be the thesis, and the other the antithesis, resulting in people deciding to go and see Ben Elton's Queen thingy instead.

Before George gets to the request for funds, he worries about The Kids Today:

I'm the last man buying music on CD, it appears. When I was a kid, my father had a stack of brown paper-wrapped 78RPM records.

Younger readers may never have seen one. they were hard, brittle, and made a delightful sound on the turntable.

Many were made by His Master's Voice, which today's youngsters know as HMV without a clue of the source of the acronym.

I suspect most of today's youngsters aren't really sure what HMV even is, never mind the source of the abbreviation. (Not an acronym, George.) Probably doesn't help they downplayed the dog in the logo.

Duffy: Don't call me Dusty

Duffy finds comparisons odious:

She says, ‘It makes me mad that people keep comparing me to Amy Winehouse and Dusty Springfield. It’s just labelling me as something else, without any respect for the struggle, the determination, focus or artistic vision I have. It’s like, "Whoa, what’s that about? Why would I want to be someone else?" Because I really don’t. I just want to be me. It’s kind of strange and disheartening to be constantly told who I look like, or who I sound like.’

Duffy may well object to being compared to Dusty Springfield. I suspect that Springfield might actually have more cause to feel outraged.

Duffy not 'Boyo's girl

Duffy has, for some reason, felt the need to clarify that she's not Tom Jones' daughter, as some Americans have apparently started thinking there's a connection.

(In other words, hearing she's Welsh, they've assumed she's related to the only other Welsh person they can think of.)

Oddly, Duffy has yet to react in any way to the equally fallacious belief that she's in some way a spiritual heir of Dusty Springfield.

Duffy not Dusty

Duffy 'Not Stephen TinTin' NottheoneoffCasualty is baffled that people compare her to Dusty Springfield:

"I only got around to owning the Dusty Springfield box-set about a year ago. I just don’t relate to it. I don’t see how there’s a thread."

No, nor do we. Nor do we.