Mighty Souls Brass Band - Lift Up!

Mighty Souls Brass Band isn't a soul band, nor a funk band, but you'll hear those influences, as well as more from around the globe.The Mighty Souls Brass Band roster is an evolving list of knockout players whose chops around Memphis are long-established. The group began to coalesce in 2012, when Sean Murphy and sax wizard Jim Spake came together to play a New Orleans-style funeral accompanied by horn player/vocalist Jeremy Shrader and percussionist Earl Lowe. Murphy found a kindred spirit in the wildly versatile Spake, whose sax playing has graced three decades' worth of albums by artists such as Alex Chilton, Al Green, the North Mississippi All-Stars, and dozens more. The record, Lift Up!, was largely recorded live to catch the infectious synergy of the group. MSBB's members composed ten of the album's dozen tracks � rooted by bandleader Murphy's sousaphone, this band has talent to burn, and that talent burns bright and fierce on Lift Up! From the swaggering opener STS to the stomping blues-holler Lift Up Your Mighty Soul to the stately southern swing of the traditional I'll Fly Away, this is a band that knows where its roots lie, but also where its branches are reaching, far out into the world, a world that, as Murphy notes, seems invariably to express its deepest spiritual desires and celebrations through music.