Johnny Cash Complete Columbia Records Collection

Set to be released at end of October: Johnny Cash Complete Columbia Records Collection

"When one thinks of Johnny Cash's recordings, one thing is certain. The Columbia years loom larger than any other phase. A star when he arrived in 1958, when he departed, he was an American icon." (from the liner notes written by Rich Kienzle)

Representing the entirety of the musical performances released by the Man in Black on Columbia Records during his lifetime, Johnny Cash: The Complete Columbia Album Collection is a 63-CD treasure trove that will appeal equally to longtime Cash followers, as well as new¬comers to his timeless body of music.
Checking in with his 59 original album titles for Columbia, from 1958's The Fabulous Johnny Cash through the two Highwayman albums of 1985 and 1990 (with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson), this impressive box set is living history. It shows Cash in command of his country & western and gospel roots, blues, straight-ahead rock and roll, the traditional balladry and folk music he loved so dearly, and much more.

Adding to those seminal 59 albums are two new compilations: The Singles, Plus a 2-CD, 55-song collection of single sides that did not originally appear on albums, plus guest performances on other artists' albums, among them Bob Dylan, the Carter Family, mother Maybelle Carter, June Carter Cash, the Earl Scruggs Revue, Marty Robbins, Willie Nelson, and Shel Silverstein (spanning 1958-85). Johnny Cash With His Hot & Blue Guitar a 28-song collection of single and non-single tracks released during his Sun Records years, 1954-58, including "Hey Porter," "Folsom Prison Blues," "I Walk The Line," "Cry! Cry! Cry!," "Ballad Of A Teenage Queen," "Big River," and more.
Box Set includes:
The Fabulous Johnny Cash
Hymns By Johnny Cash
Songs Of Our Soil
Now There Was A Song!
Ride This Train
Hymns From The Heart

The Sound of Johnny Cash

Blood, Sweat And Tears
Ring Of Fire: The Best Of Johnny Cash
The Christmas Spirit
Keep On The Sunny Side
The Carter Family with special guest Johnny Cash
I Walk The Line
Bitter Tears: Johnny Cash Sings Ballads Of The American Indian
Orange Blossom Special
Johnny Cash Sings The Ballads Of The True West
Everybody Loves A Nut
Happiness Is You
Carryin' On With Johnny Cash And June Carter
From Sea To Shining Sea
Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison
The Holy Land
Johnny Cash At San Quentin
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash
The Johnny Cash Show
I Walk The Line -Original Soundtrack Recording
Little Fauss And Big Halsey -Original Soundtrack Recording
Man In Black
A Thing Called Love
Johnny Cash: America A 200-Year Salute In Story And Song
Christmas -The Johnny Cash Family
Any Old Wind That Blows
The Gospel Road (2 Disc)
Johnny Cash And His Woman
Johnny Cash pa Osteraker
Ragged Old Flag
The Junkie And The Juicehead Minus Me
The Johnny Cash Children's Album
Johnny Cash Sings Precious Memories
John R. Cash
Look At Them Beans
Strawberry Cake
One Piece At A Time
The Last Gunfighter Ballad
The Rambler
I Would Like To See You Again
Gone Girl
Silver
Rockabilly Blues
Classic Christmas
The Baron
The Survivors -Johnny Cash Jerry Lee Lewis Carl Perkins
The Adventures Of Johnny Cash
Johnny 99
Koncert V Praze In Prague Live
Rainbow
Highwayman -Waylon Jennings Willie Nelson Johnny Cash Kris Kristofferson
Heroes
Highwayman 2 -Waylon Jennings Willie Nelson Kris Kristofferson Johnny Cash
At Madison Square Garden
BONUS DISCS:
Johnny Cash With His Hot & Blue Guitar
The Singles, Plus (2 Discs)

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Johnny Cash

Here is my collection of Johnny Cash albums as of February 26 the date on which he would have turned 80 years of age. 

BOX SETS
The Legend 4 CD Box Set
Johnny Cash at San Quentin (Legacy Edition)
Unearthed
The Complete Sun Recordings 1955-1958
Reading the Complete New Testament
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (Legacy Edition)
Life, Love, God, and Murder

AMERICAN RECORDINGS
Johnny Cash/Willie Nelson: Storytellers
My Mother's Hymn Book
American Recordings
American: Unchained
American III: Solitary Man
American IV: The Man Comes Around
America V: A Hundred Highways
American VI: Ain't No Grave

GOSPEL MUSIC
Reading the Complete New Testament
Ultimate Gospel
Just As I Am
The Gospel Music of Johnny Cash: A Story of Faith and Redemption (DVD)
The Gospel Music of Johnny Cash (2 CD)
Johnny Cash: Amazing Grace One Hour Radio Special
Johnny and June Cash: Return to the Promised Land

ALBUMS
Johnny Cash's America
Ultimate Christmas Collection
Johnny Cash Sings The Ballads of The True West
Water from the Wells of Home
The Fabulous Johnny Cash
The Very Best of the Sun Years

LIVE ALBUMS
The Great Lost Performance
Johnny Cash and George Jones: Live at the Louisiana Hayride
Live from Austin Texas
Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden
Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson: Storytellers
Live Around the World: Bootleg Volume III
Hayride Anthology
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash at San Quentin

BOOTLEG SERIES: UNRELEASED RECORDINGS
Personal File: Bootleg Volume I
From Memphis to Hollywood: Bootleg Volume II
Live Around the World: Bootleg Volume III

Tribute Albums
Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash

Whitney Houston Top 20 Billboard Singles

The late Whitney Houston's legacy on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart is legendary.

Her biggest single on the Hot 100 chart is her iconic "I Will Always Love You," from her film "The Bodyguard." The track spent a staggering 14 weeks atop the list and at the time was the longest-running No. 1 single in history.

Billboard has compiled Houston's top 20 Hot 100 singles, and unsurprisingly, "I Will Always Love You" tops the tally. It is followed by the buoyant "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)," which was her fourth of 11 career No. 1s on the list.

All 11 of her No. 1 hits presented on the recap (below) and also happen to comprise her entire top 11 singles on this tally.

Whitney Houston's Top 20 Hot 100 Hits

Rank - Title - (Year) - Hot 100 Peak Position (weeks spent at No. 1)
1. "I Will Always Love You" (1992) - No. 1 (for 14 weeks)
2. "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" (1987) - No. 1 (2 weeks)
3. "Greatest Love Of All" (1986) - No. 1 (3 weeks)
4. "All The Man That I Need" (1990) - No. 1 (2 weeks)
5. "I'm Your Baby Tonight" (1990) - No. 1 (1 week)
6. "So Emotional" (1987) - No. 1 (1 week)
7. "How Will I Know" (1985) - No. 1 (2 weeks)
8. "Didn't We Almost Have It All" (1987) - No. 1 (2 weeks)
9. "Saving All My Love For You" (1985) - No. 1 (1 week)
10. "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" (1995) - No. 1 (1 week)
11. "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" (1988) - No. 1 (2 weeks)
12. "My Love Is Your Love" (1999) - No. 4
13. "Heartbreak Hotel" (featuring Faith Evans & Kelly Price) (1999) - No. 2
14. "You Give Good Love" (1985) - No. 3
15. "I Have Nothing" (1993) - No. 4
16. "One Moment In Time" (1988) - No. 5
17. "I Believe In You and Me" (1996) - No. 4
18. "I'm Every Woman" (1993) - No. 4
19. "Count On Me" (Whitney Houston & CeCe Winans) (1996) - No. 8
20. "It's Not Right But It's Okay" (1999) - No. 4

Note: This ranking is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from each era, certain time frames were weighted to account for the difference between turnover rates from those years.

Dan Penn Bio from Alabama Music HOF

http://www.alabamamusicoffice.com/artists-a-z/p/1506-penn-dan

Dan Penn
Born: Nov. 16, 1941 Vernon, AL
A native of Vernon, AL., moved to the Shoals area while still a teenager and assumed the role of lead vocalist with one of the premier ensembles of the day, The Mark V Combo.
It was in the same year that he penned his first chart record, Conway Twitty's "Is A Bluebird Blue". During the early 60s, Penn began working with Rick Hall, first as an artist under then name Lonnie Wray, and later as the writer of hits for Joe Simon, James and Bobby Purify, Jimmy Hughes, Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett.
In 1966, Penn moved to Memphis where he began writing for Press Publishing Company and producing records for American Recording Studio. In this dual role, Penn wrote and produced "The Letter" a recording by the Boxtops which sold four million.
Among the other hits written for Press music were "The Dark End Of The Street", "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man", "Cry Like A Baby", and "Sweet Inspiration". In 1970, Penn formed Dan Penn Music and has written "A Woman Left Lonely", "Hillbilly Heart", "Too Rock For Country, Too Country For Rock And Roll", "Blues of The Month Club", and many others.
Chart Songs as a Songwriter
Song Title Recording Artist Chart* Year
Cry Like A Baby Box Tops 2 1968
I'm Your Puppet James & Bobby Purify 5 1966
Sweet Inspiration Sweet Inspirations 5 1968
It Tears My Up Percy Sledge 7 1966
Dark End Of The Street James Carr 10 1967
Take Me Just As I Am Solomon Burke 11 1967
Let's Do It Over Joe Simon 13 1965
Where There's A Will There's A Way Bobby Womack 13 1976
Sweet Inspiration Barbara Streisand 15 1972
I'll Be Your Everything Percy Sledge 15 1974
Up Tight Good Man Laura Lee 16 1968
Out Of Left Field Percy Sledge 25 1967
Wish You Didn't Have To Go James & Bobby Purify 27 1967
Let It Happen James Carr 30 1967
In The Same Old Way Bobby Bare 34 1966
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man Aretha Franklin 37 1967
Woman Left Lonely Charlie Rich 72 1971
You Left The Water Running Otis Redding 42 1966
*Chart position is based on Billboard Magazine Pop, Country, R&B, & A/C Charts. Other music industry charts may have shown higher chart positions.
Source: Alabama Music Hall of Fame

 
Dan Penn helped shape the development of southern soul music with his legendary songwriting, musicianship and production.
A native of Vernon, Alabama, Penn moved to the Florence/Muscle Shoals area while still a teenager and assumed the role of lead vocalist in a local group calling itself the Mark V Combo. When asked what kind of music they played, Penn replies, “R&B, man. There was no such thing as rock. That was somethin’ you picked up and throwed.” He laughs. “Or threw.” It was around this time that he penned his first chart record, Conway Twitty's “Is a Bluebird Blue”. During the early ’60s, Penn began working with Rick Hall at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, first as a songwriter, and then as an artist under the names Lonnie Ray, Danny Lee, and finally Dan Penn.
Penn’s early co-writing collaborations with Spooner Oldham while at Fame included “I’m Your Puppet,” which became a hit in 1965 for James & Bobby Purify, and “Out of Left Field,” and “It Tears Me Up” performed so memorably by Percy Sledge. He also co-wrote hits for Joe Simon, Jimmy Hughes and Wilson Pickett.
Dan became an exclusive writer for Fame Publishing Co. for about three years. “It was sort of an in-house thing, where artists were comin’ and goin’, askin’ for songs, and there was sort of a built-in opportunity to try to be a commercial songwriter.
According to Penn, the reason people hear touches of country in his brand of R&B is “because I’m an old hillbilly myself. Took me about 30 years to find out I was still a hillbilly. But compared to R&B, country is much easier. You ain’t got to struggle. Anybody can sing, ‘Because you’re mine, I walk the line.’ Go try to write ‘Out of Left Field’; go find all those chords and what all that means. So a hillbilly I am, but in the ’60s I really loved R&B music, and there was a lot of it to love. I loved Jimmy Reed, Bobby Bland, Ray Charles, Little Milton, James Brown… I always respected the black singers because they were always there — we were trying to get there. Knowing that the black singers wanted my songs inspired me.”
A number of their classics were written for particular singers. “’Sweet Inspiration’ was written for the group the Sweet Inspirations, ‘Cry Like a Baby was written for Alex Chilton, ‘Out of Left Field’ was written for Percy Sledge,” says Penn. “I either was involved in the production or I was real close to the production teams, so when you’re in the middle of a clique, you got the power to either do it right, do it wrong or get out of the way and let somebody else do it.” One gets the impression that Penn was not the kind to get out of the way. “But you have an opportunity to score, and sometimes we scored. By that I mean comin’ up with a song that was good enough to get on the session. And then, if it came out and was a hit, the score was really complete at that point. So first you had to get on the session, and then the big question was, did it come out? And then the next question was, is it the single? At least back then.
“Some of these songs weren’t written that way. ‘Do Right Woman’ wasn’t written for Aretha, nor ‘Dark End of the Street’ for James Carr. Me and Chips Moman just wrote those songs and we didn’t have anybody in mind. We worked great together while we were together—we’re so lucky to have those two songs.
In 1966, Penn relocated to Memphis and began producing at Chips Moman’s American Recording Studio. While at American, Penn and Moman co-wrote “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” which Franklin turned into a soul classic, along with “Dark End of the Street,” stunningly recorded by James Carr, while Dan and Spooner came up with “Cry Like a Baby” for the Box Tops and later “A Woman Left Lonely,” written at Dan’s Beautiful Sounds Studio in Memphis, and chosen by Janis Joplin for her classic album Pearl.
Penn and wife Linda relocated to Nashville in the ’70s—where he recently co-wrote and produced Bobby Purify’s comeback album, Better to Have It, in his basement studio. The session included one of Penn’s co-writers, Malaco keyboardist Carson Whitsett. The well-received album was released on Proper American in the summer of 2005.
Dan Penn Talks About Some of His Hits
“I’m Your Puppet”: “We’d done our usual, which was go get a barbecue plate or a burger. Then we came to the studio, and I had just bought a little 12-string guitar that sounded pretty good, so I just started playin’ [voices the guitar line from the song], and Spooner just slid in with [he makes the familiar keyboard sound]. Next thing you know, we’re into this song. I started writin’ stuff down, we cut a little demo on it and me and Rick came up to Nashville and put some strings on it. Actually, it was a record that came out on me, I believe on MGM, but it was called ‘The Puppet’—wasn’t no ‘Your.’ My little record didn’t do anything, and it went to the demo file. So when producer Don Schroeder brought the Purify brothers in, they went to the demo file and they picked that one out. When they started singin’ it, they sang ‘I’m your puppet’—they couldn’t remember, I guess. And I didn’t like it anyway; I thought it was too fast, kind of a rip-off of Sam & Dave, I thought. At least that’s what I was thinkin’ then. Later on, when it came out and became a hit, I loved it. It was easy to get on board later.”
“Out of Left Field”: “People say it’s a baseball metaphor, but I always think it’s a farm metaphor, like an old tractor bringin’ some hay in. The chords Spooner came up with and the places we went are kinda strange. I just love it ’cause it’s a heck of a way to say ‘She walked in out of nowhere.’”
“Do Right Woman, Do Right Man”: In January 1967, Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler brought Aretha Franklin to Fame to record “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.” Penn recalled the scene. “When she walked in she was like a young queen. Most of the guys in the studio pretended not to be paying too much attention to her, but they were looking at her from the corner of their eyes. She appeared so calm, but I knew she was scared to death. She just sat down at the piano, calmly took a deep breath, lifted her hand up and then just hit the unknown chord! The instant she did that all the guys stopped eating or talking or whatever and just headed for their guitars and drums to play. You just knew history was going to be made that day.”
“The Dark End of the Street”: “We tracked at Hi, and a few weeks later we bought James Carr to American and did his vocal overdubs and I did some background vocals. We thought James was fantastic; he had made some good records before, and we knew we had made a good record. Did we realize it was going to become hailed as a masterpiece? Not really, but I liked the song and the record a lot. What did I think of Aretha’s version? It was ok, but nobody did it as good as James Carr, not even me.
“You Left the Water Running”: “Otis Redding did a demo for me on “You Left the Water Running”. “I got to be around him the day he cut Arthur Conley on ‘Sweet Soul Music’ at Fame. Otis was the most effective record producer I have ever seen.”
“Cry Like a Baby”: I produced “The Letter” And “Cry Like A Baby” on The Box Tops. They were both Big hits. “Everybody thinks I coaxed [Alex Chilton] into doing a lot of vocal tricks, but it’s not true—he just had it. The only thing I ever told that young man to do was sing ‘aeroplane’ instead of ‘airplane’ on ‘The Letter’—I was just tryin’ to make it flow better.
Some of Dan’s latest productions have been Greg Trooper and The Hacienda Brothers. His most recent one is Julian Dawson’s “Deep Rain” due to be released in September ’08.
He is currently playing live shows with the great Memphis keyboard man Bobby Emmons.
Source: Dan Penn Biography
Interview: BOX TOPS: DAN PENN
More info: Dan Penn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Encyclopedia of Alabama: Dan Penn
 

Listen: Dan Penn - Download Dan Penn Music on iTunes
Listen: Amazon.com: Dan Penn: Songs, Albums, Pictures, Bios
Listen: Amazon.com: Dan Penn: Songs, Albums, Pictures, Bios
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I Cut Myself Loose and I Try to Get Out of the Way • A conversation with Dan Penn

I Cut Myself Loose and I Try to Get Out of the Way • A conversation with Dan Penn

http://archives.nodepression.com/2000/11/i-cut-myself-loose-and-i-try-to-get-out-of-the-way/

Seldom is heard, in conversation with Dan Penn, a discouraging word. Until you try to hang a label on him: Is he a songwriter, a producer or a performer?

“I don’t like to be put in boxes. People think they’ve got your number,” Penn says in a honey-dipped drawl that’s almost as mellifluous as his singing voice. “In my mind, I am really just a studio cat, and I love that.”

Still, it’s difficult not to try to categorize Penn, if for no other reason than to get a handle on the breadth of his achievement. As a writer, he is responsible for some of the greatest soul songs ever, including “Sweet Inspiration”, “I’m Your Puppet”, “You Left The Water Running”, “Do Right Woman” and “The Dark End Of The Street” — the latter two cut in definitive versions by Aretha Franklin and James Carr, respectively, and covered by the Flying Burrito Brothers. His first hit came while he was still in his teens, when “Is A Bluebird Blue” charted for Conway Twitty.

As a producer, he cut his teeth at the legendary Fame Studios near Muscle Shoals before moving on to Chips Moman’s American Studios in Memphis, where he helmed The Box Tops’ immortal hit “The Letter”. More recently, he helped produce Irma Thomas’ new Rounder album, My Heart’s In Memphis: The Songs Of Dan Penn.

He’s less well-known as a performer of his own songs, and that’s a shame. People who have heard his songwriting demos from the ’60s swear they eclipse most of the covers, and on the rare occasions he has played live, usually with songwriting pal Spooner Oldham, the results are a soul tutorial. He has made great albums of his own, too: Nobody’s Fool (Bell, 1973), Do Right Man (Sire, 1994), and Moments From This Theatre with Oldham (Proper, 1999).

His latest is Blue Nite Lounge, a collection of demos he recorded in a tiny cabin during fishing trips to St. Francisville, Louisiana, released through his website (www.danpenn.com). These days, he lives in Nashville with Linda, his wife of 35 years. Penn, 58, is still passionate about making music and has built a home studio, appropriately dubbed Better Songs And Gardens.

I. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN WHAT IS BEING SAID, BUT HOW IT IS BEING SAID

ND: On Blue Nite Lounge, there’s a song called “A Memphis Melody” that evokes that time in the 1960s when the great studios were in high gear; Stax, American and Hi. You were there. What was it like?

DP: It was just perfect. You rolled into Memphis and there was great camaraderie. Each studio had their own set of people. Memphis is kind of one of those places where they get jealous if you went and visited the other place, but everybody done it. I had a ‘37 Packard. We would get into that car and ride around at night and say, let’s go to Hi, let’s go see Willie [Mitchell]. He’d say, ‘What you all doing?’ We’d say ‘We’re going to the Rendez-Vous. Wanna go?’ ‘Naw, we gotta work.’ Or we’d stop by Stax.

It was kind of part of our writing ritual. Many nights, it was just, go to another studio and see what the rest of the world is doing. It was a delightful place, Memphis was in those days. There was really no animosity in the air. After Dr. King got killed down there, it has never been the same. I’ll put [the music of that time] ahead of most things I hear right now. Who knows why it was that way?

ND: People usually refer to the music you make as soul music. Does that term mean anything to you anymore?

DP: That’s a deep subject there. I know what they mean when they say soul music. They mean ’60s black soul. When I was young and in my prime, that is what was happening, and I loved it as much as anybody. And of course, we had all these great artists to work with. It drove my songs. But I don’t set around and wallow in that. I don’t care about any of those terms. I am a country person, but I have never cared too much for country music. I have got nothing against it. But there’s just a lot of vanilla that gets in the way. But black music, I have always been a fan of.
ND: You know as much as anyone what it takes to make a great song. So, what’s the secret?

DP: The older I get, the more I realize I know nothing about what I do. I used to think I had the ingredients, but it is hard to put a finger on what makes a great song. All the preconceived ideas I had about songwriting seem to have kind of melted away through the years. When I write, I cut myself loose and I try to get out of the way. I’m still writing, but all I do now is I just show up. I feel like if I show up and I apply myself, which means enjoy the music, that seems to do it for me.

What has always been important to me is how the lyric hit the melody; how they went together. I am not interested in what is being said, but how it is being said. I kind of take it back to Elvis. Sometimes I couldn’t hear a word he was saying, but I liked the way it made me feel. I like people to hear what I am saying, but if it just makes you feel good, that’s to me the main thing. It is not how great the lyric is, or how strong the melody is, but the marriage of them, and a good groove.

II. WHAT WE ABSORB EVENTUALLY ALL COMES BACK OUT

ND: How did you and Chips Moman come to write “Dark End Of The Street”?

DP: Southern songwriters seemed to always want to write the best cheating song ever, since Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart”. That song made a big impression on the minds of Southerners. It got ingrained in me, and I think Chips Moman was the same way. A lot of time with songwriting, it is what you absorb. You don’t personally have to go through it, but if you see it, understand it and absorb it, I think that really what we absorb eventually all comes back out.

We were in a poker game here in Nashville during a DJ convention. We had played a long, long time. I said let’s take a break, so me and him went into a motel, an adjoining room, and there was a guitar. I had this little idea, and I guess we wrote that song in 25 or 30 minutes. It was a week or two before we put it down, and it just so happened that James Carr was the cat who was up for a cut. Back then when we had so many great black singers who would sing our stuff, it seemed like the right one always popped up when the song got wrote.

ND: Was it the same kind of thing with “Do Right Woman”?

DP: Me and my wife were having dinner at Chips’ house, with him and his wife, and then he and I retired to a little office off the kitchen. He had this Super 400 Gibson, and we just began. We just wrote that song in maybe a couple of hours. We didn’t write it for anybody, just for us.

And then later on the Aretha Franklin session materialized at Fame, and Chips was called to be the guitar player. Right before we went down there, we put “Do Right Woman” down, just me and him on guitar, to play for Jerry [Atlantic Record exec Jerry Wexler], for Aretha. We had it about two-thirds done, but we didn’t have a bridge. I had to go write the bridge in the cloak closet while they were cutting the track [at Fame]. Wexler would say, ‘Have you got the bridge?’ He added a line, then Aretha stuck her head in and added a line. I said, ‘Cool! We got it.’ Then I had to go out and sing it in her key. I had to be the track singer while they were cutting it.

ND: I heard this was a strategy you guys would use. You are such a strong singer, you’d get sent out to sing the song for whoever’s session it was, just to rile them up.

DP: I was the wake-up guy. We only did it if we felt the singers were sleeping a bit, if they were a bit on the lazy side. Singers don’t care about what the next singer is going to do. That is an impersonal bunch, including myself. I don’t care what that guy is doing, but if he woke me up, I would show them what I can do. And usually that would get it. But they wouldn’t cop my licks.



ND: Your demos from the ’60s have become legendary. Have you ever considered digging them out and releasing them?

DP: I had been to Europe and a lot of people were asking that question, and I thought, well, I’m going to have a look at that. I called and got DATs [digital audio tapes] on them, and they were all just pretty crappy. There wasn’t anything there that I particularly wanted out. If I ever run into the two-inch analog tapes, there might be a wing and a prayer there. But coming off these DATs, I thought it was kind of ridiculous, myself. The singing just wasn’t that good. It is a better mystery than it is to be heard. When you actually hear them, it’s like, ‘I don’t hear that he did so good.’

III. IF WE DIDN’T WRITE, WE’D GO BOWLING

ND: You’ve most often written in collaboration. Is the social aspect of writing songs important?

DP: If you spend a lot of time writing, like I do, friends are nice things to have. Usually, the people I write with turn out to be friends, and it is a friendly place, songwriting. Although it is hard work and you have to fight for a line.

Sometimes I will stop and have to preach for 30 minutes about why we have to have this line. That’s okay, I don’t mind dishing it out in a co-writing situation. It hardly ever comes to that, but sometimes it does. I would like to be one of these writers who gets up at 8:30 in the morning and writes, but I have never been one to get up at 8:30. I started co-writing way back with Donnie Fritts and then Spooner. I have just enjoyed it. If we didn’t write, we’d go bowling.

ND: Speaking of the social aspect of songwriting, your new record, Blue Nite Lounge, was recorded on fishing trips. After all the different creative situations you’ve been in, writing and recording over the years, how important is the circumstance?

DP: There was no plan with Blue Nite Lounge, really. I was going fishing, I didn’t know I was starting a record. It was something that just kind of started down there in Louisiana, and it kind of had a life of its own. I decided then that I liked the vibe I was getting, so I called the guys and said we need to plan another trip, because I think we are into a record. I think it was as much Louisiana as us. There’s something in the air. Happiness, maybe.

Anytime you can relax, you hit a little higher gear, I think. Up there in Louisiana, without a phone, without a TV, just kind of aloof to the world, it does kind of give you an edge. I kind of feel that thoughts travel in the air, or feelings or good will or even bad will. I think writers have their antenna up and they pick up on what is around. And down in St. Francisville, it is a very nice place. It seemed like there is a lot of happiness around.

Blue Nite Lounge is the first one of a demo series. I do think there is some validity to this. I think people want to hear something other than what we have always given them, which is the studio, and all of that. I think there is a lot to be said to go out to a place that is not a studio, whether it is a creek bank or a cave or whatever. At least that is what is kind of fresh to me now, and fresh is always good, to me.

ND: So you would choose the freshness of that demo sound over a studio situation?

DP: You can chase yourself around [in a studio] for three weeks or maybe three months, trying to figure out how you said that [on a demo]. What was you thinking? The feelings have already left. There are no more oyster po’boys; you are in Nashville, and it is meat-and-three, and you are in another place, and it is not fair to try and go back. You beat yourself up, and I guarantee you in the end, everything could have been better-sounding [on a studio version], but the vocals would not have been close.

IV: I DON’T MIND BEING A SINGER-SONGWRITER, BUT PUT THE EMPHASIS ON SONGWRITER

ND: You’ve had so many great singers cover your work, but I’ve got to ask you about a couple that got away. Is it true that shortly before he died, Elvis Presley wanted to cover one of your songs?

DP: The tune that he was going to cut was “Nobody’s Fool”, which was written with Bobby Emmons. I had put out the single, and it was kind of a baby hit in Memphis. Elvis heard it, and he liked it . [Presley's] friends would come in to me and say, ‘Elvis is gonna cut that song. He sang it again last night around the swimming pool. He loves it!’ And they were going to record it, but he got drunk or passed out or whatever or got sick or something. They never did cut it.

ND: “Nobody’s Fool” would have been a great song for Elvis.

DP: Oh man! Elvis would have killed it!

ND: The other is, weren’t you asked to write a song for Bette Midler’s movie, The Rose?

DP: The movie company had Spooner and I in L.A., paying our expenses, keeping us in the hotel and feeding us and all. And we were trying to come up with these songs for this movie that we have never seen. Bette Midler was dropping by, and she was kind of a friend of ours. Nobody would tell us much about the movie. We were left on our own to dream up songs. So “Zero Willpower” came up in that particular time. We made a tape and gave it to them, and they didn’t care for it. We said we’ll keep that one and cut it on our own. I produced it on Irma Thomas back around ‘79 in Muscle Shoals. She sung it on the new record in Memphis, too. [Penn cut his own version on Do Right Man.]

ND: You started off as a performer, but then decided to work behind-the-scenes. Your records have been infrequent, and you don’t perform live often.

DP: In 1965, I just kind of slammed the door to playing live. I didn’t play live really for 25 years. I never did want that, particularly, after I got into the studio and got into writing seriously and cutting records, and I still don’t. I don’t mind being a singer-songwriter, but put the emphasis on songwriter. I don’t mind putting out records, I like to do that, but it’s whether I am going to show up to play or not that’s debatable. What that does is take up your time. When you are out there on the road, you are not getting many songs cut and not many songs written.

I love to play, and I love the feedback. After not playing for 25 years, I immediately saw the benefit to songwriting from playing out. There is something you get back from the audience that, if you stay away from it long enough, you will be starved for it. Looking back, if I had been playing, I would have been doing better as a writer. It helps. You don’t have to be a performing songwriter to write good, but I get something back that the next song might benefit from.

I really never did want to be an artist. In the very beginning I did. Now, it is not part of the plan. I guess I am a little bit…I have got a life. I would like to keep it.

Dan Penn at Country Music HOF preview article

http://www.examiner.com/country-music-in-nashville/country-soul-master-dan-penn-gives-rare-performance-oct-16-at-hall-of-fame

Master country-soul craftsman Dan Penn will treat guests to a rare Nashville performance and an in-depth interview on Saturday, Oct.  16, as part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Poets and Prophets: Legendary Country Songwriters, a programming series thast honors songwriters who have made significant contributions to country music history. 
 
The 1:30 p.m. program, which will be held in the museum’s 300-seat Ford Theater, is included with museum admission and free to museum members. The program will also be streamed live at www.countrymusichalloffame.org.
 
Michael Gray, museum editor, will serve as host for the 90-minute program that will be illustrated with recordings, photos and film clips from the museum’s collection. Immediately following, Penn will sign autographs in the Museum Store (Please visit the museum’s aforementioned website for signing details.)
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Respected music journalist Peter Guralnick has called Penn the secret hero of his book titled Sweet Soul Music, which chronicles 1960s-era R&B. The Nashville resident wrote classics such as “Dark End of the Street,” “I’m Your Puppet,” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” “Cry Like a Baby,” “Sweet Inspiration,” “It Tears Me Up,” “Out of Left Field” and many more. Penn’s songs have been recorded by everyone from country acts the Flying Burrito Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ronnie Milsap, Lee Roy Parnell, Charlie Rich and Hank Williams Jr. to R&B artists Arthur Alexander, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding.
 
Born Wallace Daniel Pennington in 1941, Penn was reared on a small farm in Vernon, Ala. According to a media relePenn had excellent ears and spent countless nights huddled under his covers listening to the faint sounds of WLAC-Nashville on his transistor radio. He instantly took to R&B artists such as Bobby “Blue” Bland, Ray Charles and James Brown, who were all featured on radio personality John R’s nightly program. By the time he was a teen, he was an opinionated musical personality who, per Penn himself, “lived, ate, drank and slept music.”
 
While still in high school, he joined his first band, Benny Cagle and the Rhythm Swingsters, and met a young electric sax player named Billy Sherrill. Sherrill, who would become one of country music’s most influential producers, was impressed by Penn’s songs and urged Penn to follow him to Florence, Alabama, where a vibrant recording scene was emerging.
 
Penn arrived in town with a hit song in his back pocket, “Is a Blue Bird Blue,” which was quickly recorded by Conway Twitty in 1960. He soon signed a publishing deal with Rick Hall’s Florence Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) and became the burgeoning studio’s first artist on its Spar label. His local popularity grew even more when he joined the Fairlanes, a high-energy R&B and rock group in the Muscle Shoals area. 
 
Later, Penn took his band, the Pallbearers, on the road in a made-over hearse, introducing the southeast region to his own soulful voice and musical fervor. In the meantime, Penn flourished as a writer, forging partnerships with fellow songwriters Donnie Fritts and Spooner Oldham. Penn scored a major hit (co-written with Oldham) in 1966 with “I’m Your Puppet,” which reached the Top 10 on the pop and R&B charts for James & Bobby Purify. 
 
Penn moved to Memphis that same year and became a chief writer, producer and musician at Chips Moman’s American Recording Studios. The studio cut more than 120 Top-100 songs in the late 1960s.
 
Penn and Moman’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” originally popularized by Aretha Franklin in 1967 and a country hit for Barbara Mandrell in 1971, is a standard that has been covered by the Flying Burrito Brothers, Brenda Lee, Willie Nelson, Kitty Wells and others. “Dark End of the Street,” also written by Penn and Moman, was a top-10 R&B hit for James Carr before it was recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers, The Kendalls, Linda Ronstadt, Gary Stewart, Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton and other country acts.           
With writing partner Oldham by his side, Penn composed late-1960s pop hits for the Box Tops, including the smash “Cry Like a Baby” and the top-40 “I Met Her in Church.” Penn also produced most of the Box Tops’ catalog, including their No. 1 record, “The Letter,” in 1967.
 
Penn also co-wrote Percy Sledge’s “Out of Left Field” and “It Tears Me Up,” Arthur Alexander’s “Rainbow Road,” Barbara Lynn’s “You Left the Water Running” (originally demoed by Otis Redding), Clarence Carter’s “Slippin’ Around,” Solomon Burke’s “Take Me (Just As I Am),” Laura Lee’s “Uptight, Good Man” and the Sweet Inspirations’ “Sweet Inspiration,” among many other time-honored compositions.                                                                                                                                                                  
 
Penn and his wife, Linda, relocated to Nashville in the 1970s. He released several critically acclaimed solo albums, including Nobody's Fool (1972), Do Right Man (1994), Blue Nite Lounge (2000) and Junkyard Junky (2007). In 1999, Penn and Oldham released a live album, Moments from This Theatre. The same year, Penn worked with New Orleans R&B artist Irma Thomas on her album My Heart’s in Memphis: The Songs of Dan Penn. He continues to write and produce, and is currently playing live shows with renowned Memphis keyboardist Bobby Emmons.
 

Chips Moman Interview

http://www.georgiarhythm.com/2008/11/lagrange-native-chips-moman-talks-about.html


Sunday, November 16, 2008

LaGrange Native Chips Moman Talks About His Life in Music



Legendary producer Chips Moman's credits read like a "Who's Who" of American music. Consider just a few of his accomplishments:

* Founded the renowned Stax McLemore Avenue studio where artists like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Booker T. and the MGs created innumerable R&B classics.

* Played lead guitar on Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved A Man" and co - wrote (with Dan Penn) Aretha's "Do Right Woman."

* Formed American Sound Studios and with the '827 Thomas Street Band' (American's rhythm section) produced over 120 R&B, pop, and country hit records.

* Wrote "Luckenbach, Texas" for Waylon Jennings and subsequently produced hit recordings for (among others) Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roy Orbison.

Having achieved all this, you'd think he'd have earned the right to brag! But that's not his nature - he's more comfortable talking about (and praising) the musicians and artists he's worked with. Here's the interview:

GaRhythm: You hitchhiked to Memphis at age 14. What made you go to Memphis?

Moman: I had an aunt living there at the time and her son was in the painting business. I went there in hopes of getting a job painting.

GaRhythm: But it didn't turn out that way!

Moman: Well, I went to work painting! [laughs]

GaRhythm: When did you start playing guitar?

Moman: I played guitar ever since I could remember really. I was playing guitar before I ever left here [Georgia]. It seems like I always had played guitar. I had two cousins that played guitar and all my mom's sisters played piano.

GaRhythm: You were working in the painting business and you got more and more into music and wanting to be a professional...

Moman: I never did think in terms of being professional. There were some boys that I hung around with in the neighborhood in Memphis. We all got together and started picking a little bit together. I didn't even own a guitar. I was using another boy's guitar - one of my friends. And we played a couple of the little teenage dances at that time. None of us knew what we were doing - we just got together and kind of played a little bit. And I ended up getting up a job with [Sun recording artist] Warren Smith. He walked into Smart's Drug Store where I was sitting there playing this boy's guitar. And he asked me if I wanted a job and I said "doing what?" That's how it started. It was just something that kind of fell in my lap. It's not something I planned. I never had an idea that I'd ever play music for a living or anything. It was just something that was a hobby. It was entertainment at home, you know?

GaRhythm: Then you went out to California?

Moman: Yeah, with Johnny and Dorsey Burnett.

GaRhythm: You were around 20 or 21?

Moman: I was probably 20 at that time. Johnny and Dorsey had won the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and they were starting to record. And so I played with them and then I started getting hired by other people to play on different sessions out there. A lot of demos and things. That's where I really started getting around recording studios. I'd never been in recording studios at that point.

GaRhythm: Somehow you got back to Memphis, because it wasn't too long after that you got into the Stax and Satellite thing. How did that come about?

Moman: I had gotten in a car wreck on the road with Gene Vincent and Gary Stites. And I was back in Memphis trying to recuperate. Wearing a cast and stuff. Anyway, I played on a record or two for Jim Stewart [owner of Stax Records] who had a little place out in Brunswick [Tennessee]. He had one tape machine and four microphones. We got to talking, and since I had a little experience out there at Gold Star [California recording studio] I said "why don't we find a bigger place?" And a guy named Paul Ritchey and I were riding around and we found this old theater over on McLemore. So we got together here and pooled our money and rented that place and started building that studio.

GaRhythm: And that was the Stax studio, right?

Moman: Right.

GaRhythm: Jim Stewart's direction in those days was more country-oriented?

Moman: He was a country fiddle player. But he had studied music and could read music. To me that was big time if you could read music!

GaRhythm: He worked in a bank or an insurance company?

Moman: He worked in a bank.

GaRhythm: He must have liked you or trusted you because you steered the company in the rhythm and blues direction...

Moman: That's true. Living in California changed a lot of my music. California was light years ahead of Georgia and Tennessee.

GaRhythm: At Stax, were you just doing things on your own? How did you start?

Moman: I would spend the day just figuring out what I was going to do. Usually it was just someone that would walk in. There was a lot of curiosity in those days. People would just walk into a recording studio, you know? And that's how David Porter came in. And William Bell. These people would just come into the studio and while they were in there we'd just start recording. So that's how those records came about. When Jim would get off in the evenings, he'd come in and I'd play him what I did that day.

GaRhythm: And this was in the McLemore theater, right?

Moman: Yeah.

GaRhythm: Now, the first band you had was the Triumphs. You had Booker T. in there. Was that your session band - how did that work?

Moman: They would come in usually in the afternoon after school was out.

GaRhythm: Booker was in high school, I guess.

Moman: Yeah, he would come in wearing an ROTC uniform - him and David Porter.

GaRhythm: Then you had Howard Grimes [on drums]. Was he the Hi Records session drummer?

Moman: That's the same guy. But the guy who played on "Last Nite" by the Mar-Keys, I believe his name was Curtis Green. I remember he came in and I don't think I ever saw him again. I don't know that he ever came back to the studio after that.

GaRhythm: You came up with the name for the Triumphs and then Booker T. credited you with naming the MGs. So you had the MGs and the Triumphs. Were you a car nut at that time?

Moman: The first new car I'd ever gotten was a TR3 Triumph. That was in '61. So I named the band the Triumphs. When I left Stax, they kept those musicians and I guess added to them. But Booker T. was still part of it and they named his group after the other little red sports car, which was an MG. Booker T. was always one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. I always thought a lot of him and he was really a great musician.

GaRhythm: You've been asked about the Memphis sound and the use of horns. What's your take on that?

Moman: We were using horn [sections] over there on the Mar-Keys. Other people were using one horn. They'd use saxophone because saxophone seemed to be the instrument in early rock and roll. They weren't using horn sections. The horn players were guys who'd drop by the studio. So, if somebody who played an instrument dropped by the studio and we were working we'd use them - it didn't matter what they played.

GaRhythm: You'd say "let's do a harmony part here" - is that how it came about?

Moman: That's exactly how - it was just a head arrangement. And different guys would drop in. Gilbert Caples - great saxophone player. Floyd Newman played baritone saxophone. Wayne Jackson on trumpet. Bowlegs Miller played on a lot of stuff. Fred Ford. [Jazz pianist] Phineas Newborn used to drop in. We never really recorded with Phineas, but he always came by and would sit down and play piano and knock everybody out.

GaRhythm: Would you say the Memphis sound is defined by the use of horns?

Moman: I think the horns had a great part but not any more than the bass. The bass and the drums always laid down some kind of groove that everybody could play to. We were doing something that really and truly was new to us. It was the white and black musicians together, and it just turned out to be a little bit different. This wasn't planned. It was just something that happened. A lot of great things have happened that way.

GaRhythm: How did the American studio band evolve?

Moman: One at a time. Just one at a time. I played guitar on a lot of the early things. But you get down to a point where you can't engineer and make records and go out and play [guitar] too. There wasn't a lot of overdubbing because we didn't have stereo. I knew most of the good musicians in town. So when I'd get up enough money to cut a session I would hire the best musician I could hire. As it went along I could afford to hire them every time. That's how that house band was put together.

GaRhythm: You started with Tommy Cogbill and Bobby Emmons?

Moman: Right. Tommy and Bobby. Actually Stan Kessler was among that bunch too. Stan had been a musician around Memphis a lot and engineered a lot of records and produced a lot of records.

GaRhythm: Did he play an instrument?

Moman: Yeah, he was a bass player. At one time we had three bass players. Mike Leech, Tommy Cogbill, and Stan Kessler.

GaRhythm: What about [drummer] Gene Chrisman? How did you find him?

Moman: I had played a job or two with Gene. But Gene had also been on the road with Jerry Lee. He was just known as a good drummer so I called him for sessions. He's probably got the best collection of records, and he even kept all the charts that were made from the early days. He would always write down what he had to play.

GaRhythm: He used number charts? He thought really structured, is that what you're saying?

Moman: Absolutely. Gene's always been a stickler for knowing where he's at in a song. He's always been like that.

GaRhythm: What about Bobby Emmons? He was normally the organ player?

Moman: Yeah, but he played piano too. He played piano on a lot of records - some of the Joe Tex records and a lot of other records. He played back and forth on piano and organ.

GaRhythm: Then Bobby Wood did the same thing - they switched around a lot?

Moman: Yes.

GaRhythm: And they both wrote songs?

Moman: I don't think they started seriously writing songs until the 70s.

GaRhythm: How about Reggie Young? You met him through the Bill Black Combo?

Moman: Yeah, actually Reggie Young was the original guitarist on the first Bill Black record that I know of ["Smokie"]. And it was kind of a partnership deal with him and Bill. I think there was a question of whether it would be the Reggie Young Combo or the Bill Black Combo. Anyway, Reggie got drafted. So, he did his stint in the Army. Right after that he came to American.

GaRhythm: And then Mike Leech?

Moman: Mike was another musician who could read music and write music because he came out of college to play with American.

GaRhythm: What about Bobby Womack?

Moman: He became one of our group. He was there on most sessions and during that time we recorded him too. He was there playing for a lot of people.

GaRhythm: You had said elsewhere that, from about 1967 to 1971, you were often working seven days a week at the studio -- almost sleeping there...

Moman: Well, we were really. When we would get through with something we'd say "let's call home sick." Nobody wanted to leave!

GaRhythm: When you recorded, were the sessions pretty quick?

Moman: I guess we were quick for the times. But those sessions didn't happen instantly. It was nothing unusual for us to cut a song in three or four hours. But it was not unusual for us to spend 2 or 3 days on one song. We just did it until we liked it.

GaRhythm: So you started with the rhythm section and then added a scratch vocal and then came back and did the horns. Is that how you liked to do it?

Moman: Yeah, but sometimes we did it all at once. After we got stereo machines and the extra tracks we'd bring in people afterwards. But until then we'd do it with everybody at once.

GaRhythm: James Carr did the first version of the song you and Dan Penn wrote called "Dark End of the Street." Can you remember how long it took to record that song?

Moman: It probably took 4-5 hours to cut that song.

GaRhythm: I noticed a reissue album on Joe Tex that you had written the liner notes on. What are your memories of him?

Moman: Joe Tex was an unbelievable talent. He was a great songwriter but he couldn't play an instrument. He'd have all these songs that he knew the words to but no one knew the chords! He would just stand there and sing a cappella. Usually Bobby Emmons would sit there for an hour or so on every song and put some chord changes to what Joe had. And then we'd just make it from there. Cause Joe would have all these things in his head but he didn't exactly know how to get them out. But he was brilliant. He was one of the most brilliant recording artists I've ever known.

GaRhythm: Tell me about the James Carr and Oscar Toney sessions.

Moman: Well most of the time they'd come in and we'd have no idea at all in the world of what we were going to cut and we'd just start hunting songs. Sometimes I'd have a song or two but most of the time I didn't. We'd just start fiddling around till we came up with something.

GaRhythm: I really liked the Dusty Springfield album. She was really hard on herself from what I understand.

Moman: I would like to say on Dusty Springfield that I was there for a lot of that session but I did not produce that session. I forget whether it was Jerry Wexler, or Tom Dowd, or Arif Mardin who came down from Atlantic to produce that session. People keep giving me credit as a producer on Dusty Springfield and I was not the producer! That's one of the reasons I haven't pursued any publicity because no matter how many times I tell it right it comes out another way.

GaRhythm: On the Aretha sessions you and Dan Penn wrote "Do Right Woman." And Dan Penn has described you as nearly breaking your neck getting to your guitar when you heard her sing on that session. Is that accurate?

Moman: That's about right. That was an exciting moment for us.

GaRhythm: Was that when she was singing that song ["Do Right Woman"]?

Moman: Well, she first did "I Never Loved a Man."

GaRhythm: You played the lead guitar on that ["I Never Loved A Man"]?

Moman: Yeah. Anyway, there was kind of a fiasco there at the session. And Aretha and I and Dan and Spooner were the only ones left at the studio. Wexler and Rick Hall and all the other musicians were gone. So, we went in and we cut "Do Right Woman." So when they all returned back to the studio we had that track done and there were no more sessions. So Wexler took the tracks to New York and overdubbed the background voices and a piano part from that track.

GaRhythm: And so this incident about you breaking your neck - what Dan meant was that everybody felt that way in hearing her - how good she was?

Moman: Oh yeah. We loved her. I was crazy about Aretha Franklin when she wasn't selling any records. When she was with the Ray Bryant Trio on Columbia.

GaRhythm: So Tommy Cogbill played guitar on the Aretha sessions?

Moman: Tommy Cogbill played bass on the Aretha records. He started out playing rhythm guitar. At one session, I asked Wexler to put Tommy on bass because Tommy was an incredible musician. So he put Tommy on bass and when he did that the session really started coming together. And that's how he started playing bass. And since he did that that day he became THE bass player - period. He was incredible.

GaRhythm: You guys were supposed to be the touring band behind Elvis when he did his Las Vegas tour?

Moman: People talked about it but that never came about because we couldn't afford the cut in pay! None of us could go for what they paid.

GaRhythm: It was interesting on those [American] sessions that Elvis wasn't used to people telling him that he could do better. He was used to having the whole thing done and he just sings over it.

Moman: Well, he and I didn't have any problem recording. More of the problems came from the entourage around him. Whenever I got ready to talk to him about how he was singing a song or something I would turn all the monitors off and I would walk out into the room and go into the booth with him personally and just stand there and talk with him. And it was no problem. I think it would have been a problem had you been on a talkback trying to tell him things or help him because it would be an embarrassment to him with that entourage around you know. So it was handled a little bit differently than I did other sessions but not very much different.

GaRhythm: To you guys it was another day.

Moman: Just another day - that was what it was.

GaRhythm: In 1973 you guys [American rhythm section] came to Atlanta. But you stayed a very short time - about six months?

Moman: Something like that. Then I sold the studio to Ilene Burns [Bang Records]. I went on up to Nashville because that's where all my friends were going to be.

GaRhythm: And you resisted going there a little bit?

Moman: Yeah.

GaRhythm: Did you all go up from Atlanta at the same time? Were you still together then?

Moman: Yeah, we were still together. I was the last one to go but then I had a studio to sell and things to close up. But I was really quitting at that time - I had had enough. And I only went there just because that was where my friends were. We'd been friends and worked together so long that it was kind of hard to separate.

GaRhythm: There was a clique up there [in Nashville] and you busted up the clique...

Moman: Yeah, they weren't very friendly towards us going there. They had a clique and outsiders weren't welcomed. But it wasn't just Nashville. It was that way in LA. It was like at American [Studios] - I didn't want to take a vacation because I was afraid someone would come in and get my job!

GaRhythm: So this was just like the competition anybody feels on the job?

Moman: That's right. Exactly.

GaRhythm: And your first big record was with BJ Thomas?

Moman: Yeah. That was right after I first got to Nashville. Course I had had all the early BJ Thomas records - "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Eyes of a New York Woman."

GaRhythm: So that was a reunion of sorts?

Moman: Yeah, they might have even named that album "Reunion." I don't know. But I hadn't worked with him in a great while.

GaRhythm: Tell me about your association with Willie Nelson. I understand you were a big fan of his.

Moman: I loved Willie Nelson when he first came to Nashville. He and I and Roger Miller all signed to Tree Music about the same time. And I was really into a lot of the demos that I was playing on and hearing up there. I really loved Willie Nelson from the first time I ever heard him.

GaRhythm: So that's how you wound up working with Waylon and Willie both? You kind of went way back?

Moman: Yeah I did but that's not what got me to working with them. Actually, I didn't work with Willie until "Luckenbach" with Waylon. That's what brought him in on the session because he and Waylon had done some duets. And so that's the first time I really worked with Willie. Other than I was always cutting a song or two of his here and there.

GaRhythm: Then you left Nashville for Memphis?

Moman: I went to Memphis in 1985. I got involved with the city and a bunch of political people. It didn't work and I left there in turmoil. And I went back to Nashville and didn't do anything except just piddle around. Then I decided to come back to Georgia, which was originally my home. And I did.

GaRhythm: So for about five years you didn't listen to music? Were you just trying to get reacquainted with Georgia?

Moman: That and just trying to get a better feeling about myself and the music and everything. It was a difficult time really.

GaRhythm: Now you've built a studio and you've started ChipsMoman.com Records. And you've hooked up with [producer / writer] Buddy Buie and J.R. Cobb.

Moman: Well, they were old friends of mine. My secretary [at American] was Sandy Posey. And Buddy Buie got his first hit - "I Take It Back" - that I recorded by Sandy Posey. So, Buddy Buie and I had been friends for a number of years - since the 60s. So we just renewed our friendship when I came back. We hang out, play golf and poker together. We sit up all night and mess up the house!

GaRhythm: Now you're in the Internet era and you're launching an Internet record label. As far as artists, you've got Billy Lee Riley, Billy Joe Royal, and Carl Perkins. Is that who you're starting out with?

Moman: Yeah, these were the first tapes I came to in a vault full of tapes. I cut all new stuff on Billy Joe. I only used a couple of old sides. And I'm really proud of the album. My son and I produced that together and my daughter sings background.

GaRhythm: It's a lot more relaxing to do it that way...

Moman: Yeah, it's a family affair.

GaRhythm: You have said that there's really nothing new in music. What needs to happen in the music industry?

Moman: I think labels right now are starting to have a problem. I think they've got some serious problems. There are some good records out but also a lot of bad records. It's just different. I think we're probably on the verge of something breaking through that's new or some kind of exciting new artist. You can kind of tell when music gets stale. In country music a lot of the sales have dropped off. I think it's time that something new happens. I don't know if I'll come up with it. But I do know that I don't want to continue being involved in records the way that I have been and with the companies running things the way they have.

What I'm going to do is stick with this Internet thing and see if I break through to have a hit record on the Internet. I'm going to be devoted to trying to make it happen. I think it's a great tool. I don't think we have to put up with the record companies dominating everything. Using the artist and writers and producers. Giving our money away while they don't spend any of theirs. So I'm going to stick with this and see if it can possibly happen cause that's what's interesting to me. I'm just going to hang in there and see if I can develop a company that can work on the Internet.

GaRhythm: That's cool! Can I tell people what else is in the vaults? Is there anything that you might want to hint about?

Moman: Well, there's no way I could name you what's in the vaults. I'm just going by years and what kind of heads are on the machines. I have a lot of 3, 4, 8, 16, 24, and 32-track tapes. Right now I'm working with a lot of 24-track stuff. And I'll be going back to the 16 and on back to the 8. And I might get out some of the mono stuff since that's easy. But that's kind of the way I'm doing it because it'd be hard to do it any other way.

* * *

[Postscript: This interview with Chips was conducted by telephone in the summer of 2001. Chips apparently has dropped the idea of an internet record label, but he still records and produces occasionally. He now lives in West Point, Georgia.]

Review of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham at Dakota Jazz in MN

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/08/penn-notes.php


POSTED ON AUGUST 16, 2011 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN MUSIC
PENN NOTES
I attended both of the Dan Penn-Bobby Emmons shows at the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant in downtown Minneapolis this week, Sunday’s night’s sold-out event as well as last night’s impromptu reprise. For anyone who loves American popular music, these shows almost defied belief. I doubt that we will see their like again for a long time.

The shows came about through the inspiration of record store owner Mark Treehuis of Treehouse Records. Mark invited Penn to perform in Minneapolis, I think with some persistence. The Dakota’s Lowell Pickett offered to provide the perfect venue. The circumstances seem to have inspired Penn to provide an extremely generous overview of his career, from his first hit song song, written when Penn was a teenager (“Is a Bluebird Blue,” recorded by Conway Twitty, in which Penn channeled Jimmy Reed) to his most recent compositions. It is an interval covering more than fifty years and an estimable slice of American popular music. Each of the two shows ran well over two hours.

Penn did not keep the audience waiting for the highlights. Consider the first four numbers Penn and Emmons performed last night: “I’m Your Puppet,” “Sweet Inspiration,” “I Met Her in Church,” and “Do Right Man.” These four songs, each of which Penn had a hand in writing, were huge hits for notable artists: James and Bobby Purify, the Sweet Inspirations, the Box Tops, and Aretha Franklin, respectively.

In both shows Penn followed up with other highlights from his long career: “You Left the Water Running” (demo by Otis Redding), “Out of Left Field” (Percy Sledge), “Cry Like a Baby” (the Box Tops), “It Tears Me Up” (Sledge again), “Dark End of the Street” (James Carr), “A Woman Left Lonely” (Janis Joplin), “I Hate You” (Ronnie Milsap), “Nine Pound Steel” (Joe Simon), and so on. Simply incredible.

Penn is a tremendous performer in his own right, with a soulful voice that enhances the quality of the songs. He also had stories for several of the songs. On Sunday night, he told the hilarious story of how he wrote the lyrics for the bridge in “Do Right Woman” in order to finish the song at Jerry Wexler’s request for Aretha Franklin, while the track was being recorded at the historic Muscle Shoals session. Both Wexler and Aretha pitched in as Penn worked up the bridge (“They say that it’s a man’s world…”). Is somebody taking these stories down?

One more question. What do you do for an encore after performing two sets of highlights from a long career? How do you follow “Do Right Woman,” “Dark End of the Street,” and all the rest? That’s easy, if you’re Dan Penn. You bring out the magnificent number you contributed to Solomon Burke’s late return to form — “Don’t Give Up On Me” — and you leave on a note of utter sublimity.

Gram Parsons called the music found at the intersection of blues, folk, and rock the Cosmic American Music. Somewhere in that cosmos Dan Penn has a galaxy all to himself.

Roben Jones Interview about Memphis Boys Book from Soulfulmusic Blog

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009

Roben Jones Interview
Fans of the Memphis Boys have much to be excited about with the upcoming publication of Memphis Boys: The Story of American Studios by author and poet Roben Jones. We were very fortunate to obtain an interview with Roben, who is also an occasional contributor to this blog. This book is a must read -- I've reserved my copy!

Here's the description from Amazon's site:

Memphis Boys chronicles the story of the rhythm section at Chips Moman's American studios from 1964, when the group began working together, until 1972, when Moman shut down the studio and moved the entire operation to Atlanta. Using extensive interviews with Moman and the group, as well as additional comments from the songwriters, sound engineers, and office staff, author Roben Jones creates a collective biography combined with a business history and a critical analysis of important recordings. She reveals how the personalities of the core group meshed, how they regarded newcomers, and how their personal and musical philosophies blended with Moman's vision to create timeless music based on themes of suffering and sorrow.

Recording sessions with the Gentrys, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Box Tops, Joe Tex, Neil Diamond, B. J. Thomas, Dionne Warwick, and many others come alive in this book. Jones provides the stories behind memorable songs composed by group writers, such as "The Letter," "Dark End of the Street," "Do Right Woman," "Breakfast in Bed," and "You Were Always on My Mind." Featuring photographs, personal profiles, and a suggested listening section, Memphis Boys details a significant phase of American music and the impact of one studio.

_________________________________________________

Allen: Roben, this is a great thing you've done. Tell our readers a little about yourself – the usual bio stuff.

Roben: Thanks for the compliment Allen. About me – I'm from West Virginia, a little town called Hansford that's right on the edge of the big mountains. When I was a child and lived there, the town was unincorporated, which meant that it wasn't even on a map, and that was kind of strange. It's like your town doesn't exist or something. When I was fourteen my family came to Gallipolis, Ohio, and I've been there ever since.

I had a year and a half at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Shane Keister, one of the later Memphis Boys, also went to school there, about four years before I did. And Bobby Wood's wife Janice is from Gallipolis! So there's a bit of synchronicity.

I was a poet for many years before I wrote this book. I really thought I was going to be the next Emily Dickinson. I wrote for little magazines, gave readings, read my work on West Virginia Public Radio and so on. All the things poets do. My first major publication was in an anthology called Wild Sweet Notes: 50 Years of West Virginia Poetry. It came out in 2000. It’s still in print if any of your readers would like to find it.

Allen: How did you become interested in the Memphis Boys? When did you first hear them?

Roben: I tell the full story in my preface to the book, but to sum it up, one Saturday morning in April 1969 I heard on the radio the Box Tops version of I Shall Be Released. I was fourteen.

To this day I can't describe how affected I was by that record. It wasn't the song so much as it was the production. I didn't know who had done it until I bought the 45, but Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman had woven the music so creatively around this Bob Dylan tune that they had transformed it into a statement of their own. It was just such an original concept. It made me aware of the producer's role in making a great record.

And that was just IT for me. I had to hear more. I started collecting all the Memphis Boys work.

Allen: Lots of people are fans of the Memphis Boys, but in writing a book you are paying them the ultimate tribute. What made you decide to do it?

Roben: It was a case of one thing leading to another. I’d met Mike Leech online, which was quite a thing, and I'd been asking him questions about the songs and sessions. Mike asked me one day if I'd ever considered writing a book about the Memphis Boys. Up until that second, I hadn’t. I knew their great history needed to be documented, but it had never occurred to me in a million years that I could be the one to do it. But Mike thought I could, and he encouraged me. He believed in me more than I believed in myself at that point, and so I agreed to try.

I knew that the book would be my way of thanking the group, and Chips, for all the beautiful music they had created. My goal was to tell their story accurately, in a way that would do them honor and let the world know what they'd accomplished.

Allen: I understand it's being published by the University of Mississippi Press. How’d you hook up with them?

Roben: Actually, it's being brought out by the University Press of Mississippi. They are a smaller press that specializes in books about Southern culture. They are based out of Jackson, Mississippi.

As to how it happened – that came about through Hayward Bishop, the Memphis Boys' former percussionist and second drummer. Hayward knew John Broven, who ran Ace Records in England and who also had contacts among publishers here. Hayward arranged to have Broven see a rough draft, and from then on Broven shopped the book. He recommended that I try the University Press of Mississippi. I sent them some sample chapters and they liked it. So all thanks to Hayward and John Broven for that.

Allen: Tell us about your research efforts – give us an idea of the range of sources you used to write the book.

Roben: I spoke to a fair number of people – old patrons of the group like Quinton Claunch, Fred Foster, and Papa Don Schroeder. I also spoke with a few singers – B. J.Thomas, Sandy Posey, and Brenda Lee. Brenda did an album at American in 1970 that she considers one of her best ever. I talked to some of the songwriters who had been a part of American – Wayne Carson was the one with whom I spoke most often. I interviewed a few of the sound engineers, interesting characters like Ed Kollis, who's also one of the most underrated blues harmonica players in the world.

I read and re-read the great histories that had already offered a slight look at American – Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music was a major source. It was an example of how a music history should be written. I also re-read the works of just plain historians, people like David Halberstam and William Manchester, who could tell not only the facts but the facts behind the facts, if you will. I was learning how to be a historian as I went along, and it's to be hoped that their styles helped teach me what to do.

One really cool thing was that both Reggie Young and Bobby Emmons had kept all their session logs! Many musicians don't do that but they had. That was a big help in determining exactly whom they were recording and when. Reggie would get out his session books and go over them with me line by line. And we'd discuss details of the important dates. It was just like being back there.

I also talked to musicians in Nashville who were establishing their careers at the same time the Memphis Boys were, because I wanted to know what influence the group had on their contemporaries. I’ve got a comment in the book from Ron Oates, the piano player, who was saying that the younger Nashville musicians wanted to incorporate some of that freedom and expressiveness they admired into their own sessions. I talked to several other people as well, but the one from whom I learned the most was Norbert Putnam. He gave me a context, supplied me with a lot of background details, especially about the early days of Muscle Shoals when Reggie was working many sessions there and Dan Penn and Spooner were part of it all.

Allen: You mention that the guys said you uncovered stuff they didn't know. Could you give us a sneak preview?

Roben: Here's one example. After the Elvis sessions in 1969, when the studio became really successful, some of the guys thought that the atmosphere and mood of the place changed. Which was completely understandable, because everybody was dealing with success at a level they had never anticipated. Several people observed that things got more complicated, but they kept that observation to themselves and had absolutely no idea that anyone else among them was seeing it that way too.

Understand that they never sat down as a group and talked about what was going on when it happened. These are very matter of fact sort of people. They didn't analyze anything, they just did it. The way they communicated best with each other was through that incredible music.

Allen: I think you may have the most complete discography to date – better than the Memphis Boys themselves. How did you find that information?

Roben: I've already mentioned Reggie Young's and Bobby Emmons' session books. But I'd been a record collector since discovering their work in 1969.I have a friend in New York City who's also a record collector and American Studios buff, and we'd pool our information about new releases and older singles. A friend of John Broven's over in England helped me some as well, and I also got some assistance from the guys themselves. Several of them made CDs for me of single releases I didn't have and had never heard, because they all wanted me to know as much of their work as possible. They went far out of their way to do that, and I appreciate it very much.

Allen: I've always wanted to know more about Tommy Cogbill. What did you find out about him?

Roben: Learning more about Tommy Cogbill was one of the absolute delights of doing this book. I discovered the group through Cogbill, as you know, and he was my favorite always. The book in fact is dedicated to him.

Tommy Cogbill was the heart and soul of the Memphis Boys. What Otis Redding was to Stax, what Duane Allman was to his band, what Keith Richards is to the Stones – that was the role Tommy played for the American Group. He was the one they all looked up to, the one whose opinions mattered most. Even Chips deferred to him in many ways.

He was Mr. Reliable, the one holding everything together. He was very much a gray eminence because he was quiet and preferred the background. He was respected not only as a musician but for the content of his character, as Spooner Oldham is. Tommy embodied the strong silent type – he always had time for people, was patient with younger musicians. That patience was what Jimmy Johnson and Roger Hawkins both remembered most about him.

The Memphis Boys could be very tribal at times – they had a way of shutting out most of the guys who came in later. Tommy never did that. He accepted everybody just as they were, on whatever personal or musical level he found them. There was no pettiness in Tommy. And when he became successful, he went through a few changes here and there about it but for the most part just stayed unaffected as ever and concentrated on doing good work.

It's one big hope of mine that people will go back and seek out Tommy's work as a producer. He’s remembered for Angel of the Morning and Sweet Caroline, but he did many other great works as well. As a producer, he was twenty years ahead of his time. As a bass player, he was the best.

Allen: Very little – other than the Aretha sessions – has been written about the early years of Muscle Shoals when Tommy, Chips, and Reggie covered sessions in Muscle Shoals. You talked to Roger Hawkins, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, and Donnie Fritts among other people. What did they have to say about the Memphis Boys?

Roben: The guys in Muscle Shoals were a revelation. I want to write something about them alone someday. They are incredible musicians too, and they all speak of Tommy, Chips, and Reggie with the greatest admiration and respect.

As you know, Dan and Spooner were part of American for several years, and Donnie was pretty much an honorary group member. They all say they learned from Chips' standards of excellence and Tommy's total commitment to the music. And the guys in the Shoals' first rhythm section, who worked with Reggie before they moved to Nashville, say they used to listen to the Memphis Boys records and learn from them. They thought it was a better way of making music than the assembly-line Nashville formula that was in use back then.

Jerry Carrigan said that later in his career, when he sat in with the group for some sessions in Nashville, he’d walk into the studio smiling because he knew that he and they had the same approach to making music. He wouldn't have to fight them to do something creative on the record because they were creative as a matter of course.

Allen: Give us a sense of the average studio session – how it went, how they put the music together.

Roben: It really depended on who was producing. It was very informal always, but if Chips was at the board there would be a lot of cutting up and kidding around. He’d sit around and talk to everybody beforehand, just visiting with everybody to get them relaxed and loosened up. That was unheard of in Nashville where everything was on the clock.

Chips would work with the band, sometimes all night long, like a sculptor slowly carving his vision from wet clay, working with a song until it was both technically right and expressive of a true feeling. He is a writer himself so he knew how to frame a lyric. He’d make a few gentle suggestions, but he also left a lot up to the band.

He also did a lot of just hanging around, hanging out with them. He liked an environment where it was just like a family in a house, or a bunch of good old boys picking on a front porch somewhere.

Tommy was a little more precise. You got in there, you did the song in a couple of takes, and if it didn't work he'd set the piece aside. Tommy wouldn't be in the studio all night. He usually had everybody out of there by 10 PM.

Dan Penn is a great producer, very underrated about the moods he can create on record. He sort of combined the two styles. He was as informal as Chips but as precise as Tommy.

The musicians used to horse around to put the out of town acts at ease. It didn't always work, but the singers were then supposed to be awed at the depth and beauty with which these guys could play.

Allen: Talk about the studio in terms of the physical setting. How did they come to acquire the building at 827 Thomas Street?

Roben: That was all Chips' doing. He had the building, he had the studio from the moment he started bringing the band in for sessions. He had found it, he said, while he was just driving through town. As you know, he discovered the movie theater that became the Stax building, and he'd found it the same way, so he had a talent for seeing great old buildings and knowing what would work. That’s an essential skill for a producer, I think. He was in partnership with Seymour Rosenberg when he found 827, and Seymour's father owned an auto-parts store further down on Chelsea Avenue, so that may have had something to do with the location.

Allen: What about the Memphis Boys in the pre-American days? They started at Hi, Stax, and Sun. How did it all come together?

Roben: If there was a catalyst, it was the Bill Black Combo. That’s where Reggie Young and Bobby Emmons worked. They parlayed that into a staff job at Hi, and later on both Mike Leech and Tommy Cogbill joined them there.

Gene Chrisman and Bobby Wood came from the Sun side of things. They were in a club band together, an outfit called the Starlighters.Stan Kessler recorded them and he used all the musicians plus Chips for Bobby's solo record in 1964.That's why he often gets credit for putting the band together.

They all knew each other from the clubs, but Chips was the only one who had any Stax affiliations. Later on Shane Keister worked for a little while at Stax, and Hayward Bishop drummed for the remnants of the Bill Black Combo. So that kind of takes the story full circle.

Allen: What do you think makes these guys so special? You have talked about the check-your ego-at-the-door philosophy among other things.

Roben: Lack of ego is part of it, but that isn't the only characteristic that makes this group special. They may not be egomaniacs in the usual sense of the word, but they do have a great deal of craftsmanly pride. They never wanted to put their names on a product of inferior quality. Listen to the songs on the albums they did – there is absolutely no filler. From Chips right on down the line, they wanted absolutely every song on every session to be the best it could be, and they wanted every song to have the potential of being a Number One hit.

That attitude was helped along by the fact that each and every member of this group, past and present, is a musical virtuoso – we're talking world class, skill on a symphonic level. And that's not just hyperbole, because these guys incorporated principles from classical music into their work – the concept of dynamics, for example. It makes for music of great subtlety and nuance.

Another factor – and it's hard to believe this has been overlooked as people have written about this group – has been the very specific philosophy of life expressed in their music, in large part because of the subject matter Chips emphasized on his sessions. It is music about sorrow, pain, unhappiness, hard times, suffering, and how to endure them with stoicism and grace. It’s the very voice of the working-class South, people who try and try but can never get ahead or catch a break. Chips and this group speak to them and for them. And they should rightfully be recognized for the depth and breadth of that viewpoint. It’s grown-up music for grownups, and it has so much to say.

Allen: Do you know anything about Chips' vault and whether future releases of early American recordings are a possibility?

Roben: I can't presume to speak for Chips, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he releases something else eventually. I hope he does. We’ll all need something beautiful and stoic to listen to as we get older.

Allen: What are they up to now? Do you still talk to them?

Roben: Do I talk to them? Oh sure, some of them more than others. Mike Leech has been my best friend since before the book, so I guess I hear from him the most. Occasionally I hear from Bobby Wood. I usually see Reggie at various musical events when I get to town for them – it's always good to see him. I’ve stayed in regular touch with Spooner Oldham, Shane Keister, Wayne Carson, Glen Spreen, and Donnie Fritts. I talked to Hayward Bishop a lot. I've remained close to a few of the Shoals guys as well.

The group are less active than they used to be, especially since Chips has retired, but now and then they get together for special events, like this past summer when Chips and the core group reunited for Elvis Week in Memphis.

I just want to say in closing, thanks for giving me space on the blog to talk about the book and for asking me some great questions. I’ve never done an email interview before, and it's been lots of fun.

This book was truly a labor of love, and so much happened to me during this journey that I could write a book about writing a book! Maybe I will someday. I’d also like to extend my thanks to all the group and their friends for being so open, so gracious, and so patient with me. Doing this book is something for which I'll always be grateful. I wouldn't have missed this for anything.
http://soulfulmusic.blogspot.com/2009/11/roben-jones-interview.html

Dan Penn Honored at Country Music HOF

Joseph Greget's Soul Musicelebration's Profile

Joseph Greget's Soul Musicelebration
Soulfulmusic.blogspot.com

Country Hall To Honor Dan Penn : MusicRow

From the site:

Esteemed music journalist Peter Guralnick calls Dan Penn the secret hero of his book Sweet Soul Music, which chronicles 1960s era R&B. Penn, a Nashville resident wrote classics such as “Dark End of the Street,” “I’m Your Puppet,” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” “Cry Like a Baby,” “Sweet Inspiration,” “It Tears Me Up,” “Out of Left Field” and many more. His songs have been recorded by everyone from country acts the Flying Burrito Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ronnie Milsap, Lee Roy Parnell, Charlie Rich and Hank Williams Jr. to R&B artists Arthur Alexander, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding.

Born Wallace Daniel Pennington in 1941, Penn was raised on a small farm in Vernon, Alabama. Penn had excellent ears, and he spent countless nights huddled under his covers listening to the faint sounds of WLAC-Nashville on his transistor radio. He instantly took to R&B artists like Bobby “Blue” Bland, Ray Charles and James Brown, who were all featured on radio personality John R’s nightly program. By the time he was a teenager, he was an opinionated musical personality who, according to Penn himself, “lived, ate, drank and slept music.”

While still in high school, he joined his first band, Benny Cagle and the Rhythm Swingsters, and met a young sax player named Billy Sherrill. Sherrill, who would become one of country music’s most influential producers, was impressed by Penn’s songs and urged Penn to follow him to Florence, Alabama, where a vibrant recording scene was emerging.

Penn arrived in town with a hit song in his back pocket, “Is a Blue Bird Blue,” which was recorded by Conway Twitty in 1960. He soon signed a publishing deal with Rick Hall’s Florence Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) and became the burgeoning studio’s first artist on its Spar label. His local popularity grew even more when he joined the Fairlanes, a high-energy R&B and rock group in the Muscle Shoals area. Later, Penn took his band, the Pallbearers, on the road in a made-over hearse, introducing the southeast region to his own soulful voice and musical fervor. In the meantime, Penn flourished as a writer, forging partnerships with fellow songwriters Donnie Fritts and Spooner Oldham. Penn scored a major hit (co-written with Oldham) in 1966 with “I’m Your Puppet,” which reached the Top Ten on the pop and R&B charts for James & Bobby Purify.

Penn moved to Memphis, Tennessee, that same year and became a chief writer, producer and musician at Chips Moman’s American Recording Studios. The studio cut over 120 Top 100 hits in the late 1960s.

Penn and Moman’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” originally popularized by Aretha Franklin in 1967 and a country hit for Barbara Mandrell in 1971, is a standard that has been covered by the Flying Burrito Brothers, Brenda Lee, Willie Nelson, Kitty Wells and others. “Dark End of the Street,” also written by Penn and Moman, was a Top Ten R&B hit for James Carr before it was recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Kendalls, Linda Ronstadt, Gary Stewart, Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton and other country acts.

With writing partner Oldham by his side, Penn composed late-1960s pop hits for the Box Tops, including the smash “Cry Like a Baby” and the Top Forty “I Met Her in Church.” Penn also produced most of the Box Tops’ catalog, including their #1 record “The Letter” in 1967.

Penn also co-wrote Percy Sledge’s “Out of Left Field” and “It Tears Me Up,” Arthur Alexander’s “Rainbow Road,” Barbara Lynn’s “You Left the Water Running” (originally demoed by Otis Redding), Clarence Carter’s “Slippin’ Around,” Solomon Burke’s “Take Me (Just As I Am),” Laura Lee’s “Uptight, Good Man,” and the Sweet Inspirations’ “Sweet Inspiration,” among many other time-honored compositions.

Penn and his wife, Linda, relocated to Nashville in the 1970s. He released several critically acclaimed solo albums, including Nobody’s Fool (1972), Do Right Man (1994), Blue Nite Lounge (2000) and Junkyard Junky (2007). In 1999, Penn and Oldham released a live album, Moments from This Theatre. The same year, Penn worked with New Orleans R&B legend Irma Thomas on her album My Heart’s in Memphis: The Songs of Dan Penn. He continues to write and produce, and is currently playing live shows with renowned Memphis keyboardist Bobby Emmons.
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Dan Penn in Minneapolis

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/127471723.html?page=all&prepage=2&c=y#continue

Dan Penn and Bobby Emmons recently appeared at the Dakota Jazz club in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here's a good interview with Dan from the Star Tribune:

Songwriter Dan Penn, an Alabama farm boy who became one of the most prolific talents in R&B, pays a rare visit Sunday.



Even if you don't recognize Dan Penn's name, chances are you're familiar with his work.

As a songwriter, Penn helped create dozens of indelible classics that define the golden age of Southern soul, including Aretha Franklin's "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," the Box Tops' "Cry Like a Baby," James Carr's "Dark End of the Street," James and Bobby Purify's "I'm Your Puppet" and Janis Joplin's "A Woman Left Lonely."

He was equally prolific as a producer, perhaps peaking with a cultural touchstone: "The Letter," by the Alex Chilton-led Box Tops. Even a brief list of Penn's other associates reads like a who's who of '60s R&B: Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Otis Redding, Arthur Alexander, Solomon Burke. Another is Bobby Emmons, an ace writer himself ("Luckenbach, Texas") and member of the famed Memphis Boys, who played with everyone from Elvis and Joe Tex to Dusty Springfield.

Emmons will be there on keyboards Sunday when Penn stops by the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis for a rare appearance that should include a slew of his classics as well as the fascinating tales that go with them.

"We play every once in a while, but not so much," said Penn, who turns 70 this fall, in his slow, quiet, Alabama drawl. He was speaking by phone from his Nashville home, complete with a studio he still uses for artists who seek him out. Memphis guitar great Steve Cropper just finished an album there, and Penn himself is completing the third in what he calls his Demo Series, following up 2008's "Junkyard Junky."

He primarily considers himself a songwriter, but is also a talented guitarist and expressive, soulful singer. The demos he recorded to pitch his classic songs are rumored to be amazing. Penn downplays those and often soft-pedals his many accomplishments. He's generally considered to have had a profound influence on Chilton, for example, but he insists that's not true.

"I didn't tell Alex how to sing," he said, although he admits that when "The Letter" came out, "Some of my friends back home, they thought it was me singin'. I did not influence him in any way except I would pitch him songs that I wrote."

Penn takes responsibility for one key change when they were cutting the record: "I told him to sing 'air-O-plane' instead of 'airplane.' It just rolled better."

The school of radio

So how did a white kid growing up in rural Alabama in the 1950s become an icon of Southern soul?

"I was a farm boy," he said, "but at night I'd listen to R&B. I listened to my little green radio. I had my own little room. After everybody'd go to sleep, I'd listen to WLAC in Nashville. That was my education."

And what an education it was. Ray Charles, Bobby Blue Bland, Jimmy Reed, Little Milton and James Brown crackled over the airwaves, seeped into teenaged Dan Pennington's brain, and he was hooked. As for country, "It wasn't on my radar at that point." Still, a couple of country stalwarts had a role in getting Penn started.

"Daddy had a one-mule farm," he said, near Vernon, some 60 miles southwest of Muscle Shoals, close to the state line. When his father took the truck into town, young Penn would be left to plow the fields. While he plodded behind the mule, Penn would sing songs like Hank Williams' "Jambalaya," and when he'd forget the words he'd make up his own.

His first hit song was recorded by Conway Twitty. Penn said he got the idea from an escapade with his friends. They persuaded some older kids to take them along to the bars in Mississippi. One of the older crowd answered every question with "Is a bluebird blue?" Penn, despite being a little queasy from his first beer, figured, "Maybe there's a song there."

At the urging of bandmate Billy Sherrill, he took "Is a Bluebird Blue" up to Muscle Shoals, and it made its way to Twitty, who climbed the charts with it in 1960.

Penn was 16.

Magic time

That began a long relationship with Rick Hall's Fame studio in Muscle Shoals and later Chips Moman's American Studios in Memphis as an in-house writer and producer. The hits came fast and furious, and so did artists from all over, hoping a little of the magic would rub off on them. There seemed to be an exhilarating sense that anything could happen.

When Atlantic Records honcho Jerry Wexler took Aretha's backup group, the Sweet Inspirations, to American for their own session with New York producer Tom Dowd, Penn said he stopped in and discovered "it wasn't happening." So he and frequent collaborator Spooner Oldham slipped into another room, wrote "Sweet Inspiration," then cut it with the group while Dowd and his crew took a lunch break. When they returned, Penn announced, "We got your hit."

"You know, back in the day I was a lot more aggressive," he deadpanned. "Hungry was the word."

These days Penn favors bib overalls and tinkering with old cars. He's dismissive of the current crop of neo-soul artists for essentially covering the same ground he did 40 years ago.

"I'm not interested," he said, allowing that he mainly listens to Southern gospel now.

And he keeps cranking out a steady stream of new songs. "As long as I'm writing," he said, "I'm OK."

Soul music's Do Right Man | StarTribune.com