Where swelled with southern soul in the '60s were Memphis and Muscle Shoals. Northern merchants with very quick eyes including Jerry Wexler of Atlantic distributed records spawned from there or took artists anywhere else to the south for some recordings : that trend was related to southern rock in the '70s. Whites who adored the sound from R&B stations and blacks who were bred with country ones brought music from the strange relationship in the hardly segregated world. Strangers sought that feelings and put various influences on country folks. I can't talk all about them here. The man who appeared in this stage, that is, both of Memphis and Muscle Shoals was Dan Penn from Vernon, AL. When Conway Twitty, the future great figure in the country scene, had a hit of Is a Bluebird Blue? , Dan who composed it was still a teenager. Since then he produced songs at the Fame studios of Muscle Shoals under Rick Hall and at the American studios of Memphis with Chips Moman. He wrote with Spooner Oldham, keyboardist and his long-time friend, or Donnie Fritts and sang by himself to demo tapes, which got to be the basis of many soul masterpieces. Ironically, no white singer 'who sings like blacks' was heard to be popular. That's why demo tapes of Dan Penn, said to be fabulous, never see the light of the day. (His contemporaries such as the Righteous Brothers managed to be called as 'blue-eyed soul', however, it seems to me that they are in the pop category like Phil Spector. The Rascals or the Box Tops are rock rather than 'like blacks'.) Despite it, his voice heard on his few solo albums is nourishing and sounds like worn-out jeans. He is the real, splendid singer who has still be buried beneath.
Thanks especially for producing hits of the Box Tops, a white group of The Letter or Cry Like a Baby fame (appeared on like "History of Rock The 60s, Pt.4"), Dan got many royalties and built his own Beautiful Sounds Studio. His first album mainly cut at there was "Nobody's Fool" of '73. Since it was the time when country soul went to be out of date, I have an impression that he struggled to get on the new age. He had already been well-informed about black music since Ray Charles, James Brown and Bobby "Blue" Bland turned him on, and he even referred to what was not related to the south like Motown. Such an omnivorous aspect of him well appeared on this album. While the title tune or Raining in Memphis is arranged with urban strings or horns in New York or Philadelphia, Tearjoint or the rendition of CCR's Lodi is country rock, Ain't No Love is southern pop rock in the Box Tops style, and I Hate You is pure country (covered by Ronnie Milsap or Bobby Bland). There are also experiments like Prayer for Peace or Skin. These are confusing for those who are expecting ones like in his phantom demo tapes, however, this is the album that reflected the age when several things inevitably wanted to be attached to his heartful songs and not to leave them alone. I sent an e-mail asking sort of "Why don't you have a plan to re-releasing it? Many fans in Japan want to listen" to the independent Dandy Records he manages today, but in vein. How does he put this album in his own mind?
As far as I know, the next album in his own right let us wait till in '94. "Do Right Man" contains what southern soul fans are looking forward to : the performances of his own old works by himself and expert musicians of Muscle Shoals. Tunes co-written by Spooner Oldham such as chicken-skinning James Carr's The Dark End of the Street or Percy Sledge's It Tears Me Up. You Left the Water Running which Otis Redding sang when dropped in Muscle Shoals. Do Right Woman, Do Right Man which was sent to Aretha Franklin in her one and only Muscle Shoals session. James & Bobby Purify's I'm Your Puppet which turned out to be the start of hit-making in the combination with Chips Moman. Irma Thomas' Zero Willpower and so on. These are kind of "Muscle Shoals reunion party". Since that was the time when veterans began to return to what they did after they were disturbed in some fads, Dan Penn also got to be active. Compared with "Nobody's Fool" which had scenes he forced himself to shriek, his mellower voice is wonderful. The two men live with Spooner Oldham "Moments from This Theatre" in '99 let us share performances and vocals worth listening : the simple keyboards and guitar accompaniments sometimes with Spooner's chorus. It is so simple that these cool and tasty tunes come to the surface : Sweet Inspiration which was named after the Atlantic backing chorus women Sweet Inspirations. Cry Like a Baby and I Met Her in Church of the Box Tops. Out of Left Field of Percy Sledge. A Woman Left Lonely of Janis Joplin.
In the 21st century Dan Penn also had some works with new artists. The series of Hacienda Brothers is played in the old-fashioned country style with the atmosphere of southern soul. My only possession is their first "Hacienda Brothers" , and the rest are to be in my shelf. It is regrettable that Chris Gaffney who also had a fine deep voice passed away. Dan himself refrains from major recordings and cut two albums called demo series from his Dandy Records. "Blue Nite Lounge" in 2001, produced with an 8-track cassette recorder at the local church when he took a fishing trip to Louisiana, frightens us by the programming sound unlike his ordinary ones but gradually spreads into the intimate one. "Junkyard Junky" in '08 is more constracted. Its title tune and others are sparser than major ones but that's why they are tastier and more wonderful. It is quite interesting that the car appeared on the sleeves of "Nobody's Fool" and "Do Right Man" is rusty and broken up. While his fellows got old and some passed away as written in the liner notes, I feel like saying "You are not so getting old as you think. Let me hear some more" when I hear him singing his first hit offering Is a Bluebird Blue. (2008/12/28)