Dan Penn (born Wallace Daniel Pennington, 16 November 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and sometime guitar player who co-wrote many soul hits of the 1960s including "Dark End of the Street" & "Do Right Woman" (with Chips Moman) and "Out of Left Field" & "Cry Like A Baby" (with Spooner Oldham). Penn has also produced hits such as "The Letter" by The Box Tops, amongst others. Though he is considered to be one of the great white soul singers, Penn has a meagre recorded output, preferring the relative anonymity of songwriting & producing.
Early life and career
Penn grew up in Vernon, Alabama and spent much of his teens and early twenties in the Quad Cities/Muscle Shoals area. He was a regular at Rick Hall's FAME Studios as a performer, songwriter and producer. It was during his time with FAME that Penn cut his first record, "Crazy Over You" in 1960, and wrote his first hit, "Is a Bluebird Blue?" which was recorded by Conway Twitty in the same year, and was later covered by James Brown. The success of "I'm Your Puppet," a #6 pop hit for James & Bobby Purify, convinced him that songwriting was a worthwhile (and lucrative) career choice.
Career moves
In early 1966, Penn moved to Memphis, began writing for Press Publishing Company, and worked with Chips Moman at his American Studios. Their intense and short-lived partnership produced some of the best known and most enduring songs of the genre. Their first collaboration, the enduring classic "Dark End of the Street", was first a hit for James Carr and has been recorded by many others since, notably by Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Elvis Costello, Frank Black, Gram Parsons, Richard & Linda Thompson, Emmylou Harris and by Linda Ronstadt. It was also used in the hit movie "The Commitments". A few months later, during the legendary recording sessions that saw Jerry Wexler introduce Aretha Franklin to FAME Studios and her first major success, the pair wrote "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" in the studio for her, which went to #37 in Billboard in 1967. The song has since been recorded many times including by Barbara Mandrell, Cher, Etta James, Joan Baez, Marva Wright, Phoebe Snow and Willie Nelson. It has also been recorded with Japanese lyrics as "Onna No Sadame". In early 1967 Penn produced "The Letter" for The Box Tops. He and long-time friend and collaborator Spooner Oldham also wrote a number of hits for the band, including "Cry Like a Baby" , another song which has been covered many times, including by Cher, Kiki Dee, Kim Carnes and Lulu. Other songs written or co-written by Penn which have been recorded many times include "I'm Your Puppet" a #5 hit in 1966 for James and Bobby Purify, and also recorded by Sam & Dave, Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Irma Thomas, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Peter & Gordan and Tierra, "Woman Left Lonely" recorded by Janis Joplin, Charlie Rich, Cat Power, Irma Thomas, Rita Coolidge, Patti Page and Clementine, and "Sweet Inspiration" a #5 hit for the Sweet Inspirations in 1968, and also recorded by the Supremes, Vonda Sheppard, Rita Coolidge and Wislon Pickett, and "You Left The Water Running" a #42 hit for Otis Redding in 1966, and later recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers, Huey Lewis and Wilson Pickett. Other notable songs written or co-written by Dan Penn are "I Hate You" recorded by Bobby "Blue" Bland and Jerry Lee Lewis, "I Got a Feelin For You" recorded by Kelly Willis, "I'm Not Done Lovin' You Yet" record by Neil Young's wide Pegi on her solo album, "LIke A Road Leading Home" recorded by Albert King and Jerry Garcia, "Nobody's Fool" recorded by Alex Chilton, "Time I Took A Holiday" recorded by Nick Lowe, "Where You Gettin' It" recorded by Theryl "Houseman" Clouet, "Out of Left Field" recorded by Percy Sledge and Hank Williams Jr. and "Slippin' Around recorded by Clarence Carter and the Detroit Cobras.
Penn continued writing & producing hits for numerous artists during the 60s and finally released a record of his own, Nobody's Fool, in 1972. He was coaxed into the studio again in 1993 to record the acclaimed "Do Right Man" which saw him reunited with many of his friends and colleagues from Memphis & Muscle Shoals. He also has recently written and produced for the Hacienda Brothers.
He now lives in Nashville and continues to write with Oldham and other contemporaries such as Donnie Fritts, Gary Nicholson and Norbert Putnam. He and Carson Whitsett have had their collaborations recorded by Irma Thomas and Johnny Adams and often teamed with writers Jonnie Barmett and later, Hoy Lindsey. The Penn/Whitsett/Lindsey team are responsible for Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up On Me" (also recorded by Joe Cocker), and Penn produced 2005's Better to Have It by Bobby Purify that featured twelve songs from the team.
He and Oldham also tour together as their schedules permit.
Discography
- Nobody's Fool (1973)
- Do Right Man (1994)
- Moments From This Theatre (1999) - live recording, with Spooner Oldham
- Blue Nite Lounge (1999)
- "Junk Yard Junky" (2008)
References
- Hoskyns, Barney; Say It One Time For The Broken Hearted, Fontana Paperbacks, 1987. ISBN 0-00-637219-8
- Guralnick, Peter; Sweet Soul Music, Penguin Books, 1991. ISBN 0-14-014884-1
- Gordon, Robert; It Came From Memphis, Secker & Warburg, 1995. ISBN 0-436-20145-3
- "Dan Penn", Alabama Music Hall of Fame.
See also
External links
