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