This is an act of pure advocacy.

Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Joe Tex – what do these four all have in common? Well, they were all charter members of the near-mythic (no, I mean really mythic, as in “some mythic creature”) Soul Clan, who recorded just one side of one picture-sleeve 45 – without Otis, who had died, without Pickett, who had had an emotional flare-up – but were conceived by Solomon, in typical Solomonic fashion, as a force that might have changed the world. Well, they did – with their music. And three of them are enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Only Joe Tex, who is on the ballot this year for what well may be the last time, remains excluded.

The first time I saw Joe Tex he was on the same bill with Solomon and Otis (Solomon was the headliner) in a 1964 Soul Summer Shower of Stars, and he more than held his own. As an entertainer, who took great delight in his ability to give pleasure to his audience and in their evident delight with him. As a songwriter and exemplar of mother wit, dispensing healthy dollops of good humor mixed in with sharp shards of his own earthy philosophy. (Check out songs like “Anything You Wanna Know” or “Grandma Mary” on his brilliant, entirely self-penned album, Buying a Book.) As an effortless performer, endlessly enchanting his audience with his easy onstage manner, lithe dancing, and microphone manipulations. Not for nothing was he known as the Dapper Rapper.

But in the end, what made Joe Tex an intrinsic member of the Soul Clan, dues paid up in full and in perpetuity, was his dedication to Deep Soul (think James Brown’s “Lost Someone,” Solomon’s “The Price,” Otis’s “These Arms of Mine”). Just listen to his breakthrough hit, “Hold What You’ve Got” or, for that matter, “The Love You Save,” self-written like nearly every one of his hits and much of his album material, and see if you can resist the pathos and deep-seated feeling at the heart of his music.

So I’m asking for your vote, the last vote left to us in this Year of Jeremiah (I wonder what Solomon would have to say about that): VOTE JOE TEX FOR THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME.

And now I’ll turn over the lectern to Brother Joe.

Mr. C Speaks:

I second that emotion.

And just to reinforce the point: there’s a three-part, black-and-white YouTube clip of the full Joe Tex Show, live in Sweden 1969 and complete with explosive sound, that provides a rare visual glimpse of the stage mastery of Joe Tex. Part 3 opens with an original take on Henson Cargill’s #1 country hit, “Skip A Rope,” and ends with a burning version of Joe’s signature “Skinny Legs and All,” a highly eccentric Top 10 pop hit in 1968. Joe and his band, led by ferocious drummer Clyde Williams, turn “Skip a Rope,” a socially aware composition with a nursery rhyme structure, into a Sam Cooke kind of rave-up, complete with horn voicings lifted from any number of late Cooke uptempos. It’s that same odd mix of sass and soul that made Joe Tex so different from any other soul singer, while at the same time declaring his commonality, that same utterly unique talent which was on display night after night, whether in Sweden or on the endless string of clubs and stages that Joe Tex inhabited. “Original,” like “genius,” is a much-abused appellation, but Joe Tex fully deserves both titles. VOTE JOE TEX

Guest Blogger: Joe McEwen (Mr. C)

Me and Mr. C:

I met Joe in 1970 when Jake and Alexandra and I were selling tickets to a Lightnin’ Hopkins concert at the door. Jake was 2, and Joe was 18 or 19. “Did you mean what you said in that Solomon Burke article you wrote in Rolling Stone?” Joe said, without bothering to introduce himself. “Yes,” I said. We’ve been friends ever since.

–PG

DAN PENN– THE FAME RECORDINGS (ACE)

For years there was quite a mythology surrounding the name Dan Penn. A Southern soul songwriter whose name appeared

on some off the most heartfelt, literate ‘60s soul music stories (sung by voices like Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, James Carr and Arthur Conley), Dan Penn was also something of a singer, whose impossible-to-find random singles and never-heard demos were rumored to be at least the equal of the Murderers Row that made them famous. Much of the Dan Penn myth-making was fueled by the enthusiasm of Atlantic Records entrepreneur and A+R guy Jerry Wexler. In fact it was Wexler’s Atlantic label that released more than a few of Penn’s best compositions.

There’s no doubt Dan Penn was a mysterious presence, more heard about than heard. A white man who succeeded in a black man’s world. Not unlike LSU basketball genius Pete Maravich (whose college career timeline paralleled Penn’s years here), Dan Penn was a larger-than-life ghost, with little national exposure.

A few years back, CBS Sports aired a documentary about Maravich. Watching it was really something. Pete Maravich was certainly more than advertised, a basketball-playing magician and soloist whose talent stood outside time and place. To my mind, it’s not a stretch comparing the Maravich footage to the 23 publishing demos (there’s one actual Fame single) on Dan Penn: The Fame Recordings.

In the early part of the 1960s, Dan Penn led a band, Dan Penn and the Pallbearers, that played the college fraternity circuit throughout Mississippi and Alabama. Despite local success, Penn found his calling in songwriting. The liner notes to this project are mostly a conversation with Dan, a self-revelatory monologue about the craft of writing songs.

Dan Penn took this work with studied seriousness. His writing influences ran a gamut of radio hit styles: Phil Spector, Motown (Marvin Gaye), Sam Cooke and Joe Tex.

As a singer, Penn’s vocals are styled and impassioned, equal parts Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich and Bobby Bland. He was a mimic when he needed to be, anything to sell the song. His more-than-occasional mid-song soliloquies (particularly “Uptight Good Woman” and “It Tears Me Up”) are spot-on Tex.

Dan Penn was an original, an eloquent songwriter with a voice to match. He helped popularize a style that has become known as country-soul and Penn landed right in the middle of those two worlds. Backed by producer and label owner Rick Hall’s home-grown house band (an ensemble embarking on their own spectacular career), Penn created a kind of soul music that was high-level pop art.Wallace Daniel Pennington aka Dan Penn, to use a Maravich-inspired basketball metaphor, could throw a blind behind-the-back bounce pass on the run. The thrill is in these songs and performances. Once in a while the myth really does become the man. Such is the case with Dan Penn.

– Joe McEwen

Dan Penn: The Fame Recordings available at fine records shop everywhere or from Amazon.com