Favourites 2 : Dan Penn : Do Right Man - one of my most played albums

I bought this album from a record shop when I lived in Invercargill after Elvis Costello mentioned it in his extensive and excellent liner notes to the underrated Kojak Variety. I do remember that I paid full price as it was not on sale and that at the time I really had no idea of who Dan Penn was.

Dan is a songwriter from Alabama who spent much time in and around Muscle Shoals who was part of small band of people who crossed the white/black/country/soul boundaries in the late 60's.  He wrote many classic songs over about a five year period.  Songs like;
Dark End of the Street : James Car
It Tears Me Up Percy Sledge
I'm Your Puppet : James and Bobby Purify
Do Right Woman : Aretha Franklin

However apart from an obscure release in 1971 (which I now have) he really had not recorded anything other than demos until he released this album.  To record it he assembled many of the musicians that had recorded on the original versions and made this collection of many of his most famous songs.  In my opinion apart from Dark End of the Street (which he does a great job on) he improves on all the originals.  It really is a superb album and whenever I play it with friends over at least one person will ask WHO IS THIS?

So if you ever get a chance to buy this album I strongly suggest you do. You will not regret it.

If you get hooked like I did there are now a lot of gems to search out.  He is now self releasing albums of demos he is still recording which you can get directly from his website.

However it is worth chasing out Dan was effectively the staff writer for Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals and he wrote and demoed many of his songs so he could show the singers how they might sing and record them. Last year ACE records released a double album of these demos called Fame Recordings.  This is well worth checking out as because Dan had access to many of the best studio musicians of the day the demos are better than many full recordings.





ACE have also released two collections of Dan's songs recorded by other artists and they too are uniformly excellent. Sweet Inspirations : The Songs of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham and A Road Leading Home.