The Love Light Orchestra

Leave The Light On

Nola Blues

Only certain voices are meant to front a big band. Two-time BMA winner and multiple BMA nominee John Nemeth is one of them and he is indeed fronting The Love Light Orchestra (TLLO). The TLLO is a nine-piece horn-driven band led by guitarist Joe Restivo and arranger/trumpeter Marc Franklin, cut in the mold of mid-century big band blues bands from Memphis that backed Bobby “Blue: Band, B.B. King, and “Junior” Parker. Part Memphis and part Kansas City in the mold of Big Joe Turner, this is a modern-day blues shouter album. The band name itself hearkens to Bland’s 1961 hit, later popularized by The Grateful Dead, “Turn On Your Love Light.”

This is the band’s debut studio album, having previously released an eponymous live effort. This one contains nine originals written by Franklin (3), Restivo (2), and Nemeth (4), with just one cover, Lowell Fulson’s “3 O-Clock Blues.” Band members Restivo, Franklin, and saxophonists Art Edmaison and Kirk Smothers hail from the Bo Keys and blues aficionados will undoubtedly recognize their names as session musicians on countless albums. You may recall that Nemeth cut an album and toured with the Bo Keys in the vintage Memphis soul vein. In that sense, these associations are not new but it’s the concept of the album, hearkening back to the blues shouter days of the ‘50s, that’s the new article.

Rounding out the lineup are trumpeter Paul McKinney, trombonist Jason Yasinsky, bassist Tim Goodwin (who has since passed), electric bassist Matthew Wilson, pianist Gerald Stephens, and drummer Earl Lowe. Bo Keys pianist Al Gamble and Grammy winning trumpeter Scott Thompson, neither of whom is a band member, contribute to select tracks. Given the in-demand schedules of these musicians coupled with the pandemic shutdown, it took three years to complete the album, but the results reflect both determination and triumph.

The band bursts out with the swaying Restivo penned, brassy “Time Is Fading Fast.” The guitarist steps out in Nemeth’s gutsy slow blues “Come On Moon” and as you’d expect the horns take the spotlight in Franklin’s rhumba “Give Me Break” with Nemeth’s powerful vocals soaring above the band throughout the album. Drummer Lowe kicks up a boogaloo beat in Restivo’s “I Must Confess,” one marked with vintage early R&B call and response sequences. The Fulsom tune was the first major hit for B.B. King in 1952 and appears in the middle of the sequence as a tribute to King, the Memphis icon. Franklin arranged it as a tango and Nemeth delivers his strongest vocal here as the band lays back somewhat until Restivo and Stephens potently deliver in the vocal break.

Seemingly fueled by that take, Nemeth goes deep into crooning mode on his ballad, “After All,” one that would easily fit in those ballroom days that presaged rock n’ roll. He then delivers one that spotlights both the horns and Restivo in the shuffling “Tricklin’ Down,” the one that most clearly evokes the style of Bobby “Blue” Bland. Franklin’s “Open Book” has hints of doo-wop, an early Sam Cooke kind of vibe while Nemeth’s title track, like so many of his tunes, is filled with typical blues structures. The line “I’m standing on the corner of B.B. King and Beale” coupled with Stephens’ rollicking piano inevitably reminds of “Kansas City.” The band closes with a vigorous horn blast, replete with honking sax and blaring horns on Franklin’s “Follow the Queen.”

Perhaps the album would draw more attention with the subtitle, “featuring John Nemeth,” on the front or back covers but that’s not the case even though it is issued under the same label that signed him. Regardless, the music stands on its own merits, as The Love Light Orchestra breathes new life (heck, they resuscitate it) into those halcyon days of the blues shouters. If any sound can shake one out of the doldrums, this powerful band is that elixir. The lights of the vital blues shouter era may have gone dim for a while, but they are brighter than ever with the talented Nemeth fronting these veteran players.

• Jim Hynes

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