photo credit: Jamie Harmon

The City Champs first came together 14 year ago. The Memphis-based instrumental trio, which features guitarist Joe Restivo, organist Al Gamble, and drummer George Sluppick, then released two celebrated records, 2009’s The Safecracker and 2010’s The Set-Up. However, the three musicians were then drawn into different directions with Gamble joining St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Sluppick appearing with JJ Grey & Mofro, while Restivo, a member of the Bo-Keys, backed artists such as Don Bryant and Percy Wiggins.

The three stellar players recently reunited in the studio to record their first new record in a decade. On March 19 Big Legal Mess will release Luna ’68. Fat Possum’s Bruce Watson produced the album at his Delta-Sonic Sound studio in Memphis and today we are premiering the visually-arresting, space-themed video for the title track.

Restivo tells Relix, “The song Luna ’68 was inspired by Italian musician and film composer Piero Umiliani’s music, specifically his record To-Day’s Sound. When we saw UK-based collage artist Sølar’s work we thought one of his pieces would make a great cover, done Memphis-style. Our friend and filmmaker Andrew Fleming used that piece as a springboard for the video of Luna ’68, including some Memphis architecture like the pyramid.”