Tag: Dan Penn

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Music Record Reviews

Dan Penn’s Latest: Timeless Lyrics Skip Over the Placid Waters of the Soul

Dan Penn knows a bit about suffering and joy. Since he began writing songs and producing at Fame Studios in Florence, Alabama, in 1960, and through his long Memphis period at American Sound Studio, creating hit after hit for the Box Tops and others, he’s always had a way of cutting to the quick of an emotion. “The Dark End of the Street,” the Penn classic made famous by James Carr, is both an urban landscape and a mental geography, limned with a few deft strokes of the pen, and the beauty of such a song lies in its simplicity.

For such songs, it’s ideal for the music to be like water. Like a pristine lake over which lyrics skip like stones, you may barely register that it’s there at all. 

That’s the ideal, anyway, and it’s reassuring that such an approach informs Penn’s latest, Living on Mercy (Last Music Co.). The album, which was officially released two months ago, with a vinyl version coming out this Friday, is only his fifth collection of original songs, excluding live albums and compilations; and only his third fully produced record. And that may be because he takes his sweet time writing songs. Certainly, they all have an unhurried quality, where each word has been chosen and worked over carefully.

And the music fits this mood perfectly. There are no dramatic angles or sharp attacks, only resplendent beds over which Penn can pour his heart out. The recording sessions in Muscle Shoals and Nashville included Milton Sledge (drums), Michael Rhodes (bass), Will McFarlane (guitar) and Clayton Ivey (keyboards), along with a full horn section, and these players are clearly seasoned. Not a note is out of place.

The general approach is cosmopolitan soul, with smooth, church-like tones coloring even the more up-tempo numbers. Now, over a half-century after the innovations of soul were pioneered, those musical moves are well-practiced and flawless, yet heartfelt, and totally authentic. It feels reassuring to hear these sounds played with both heart and restraint.

And that allows Penn’s stories and moods to take center stage. To these ears, it’s a bit too reassuring when Penn is happy and grateful, as with the title track, but especially moving when he hints at something more grim. One standout track, “Blue Motel,” may be one of his most moving, simply by virtue of painting his dark portraits with such plainspoken honesty.

It’s a long and winding dusty road to the outskirts of hell
Where only losers find their way to this old run down motel
It’s a long way from paradise to the dark end of the street
From champagne to mad dog wine, it’s all so bittersweet
Here at the blue motel

There are many stories, many moods here, but something in this song cuts to the quick of them all. From champagne to mad dog wine, they’re all so bittersweet. 

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Music Music Blog

Memphis Music Hall of Fame: Gala Event Honors Artists From Blues to Opera

CREDIT: Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Scott Bomar & Don Bryant

This past Friday evening in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame honored some of music’s most influential singers and songwriters at its eighth annual Induction Ceremony.

The event honored eight Memphis-area musicians whose lifetime contributions to music embody elements of the “Memphis Sound,” all central figures in the history of chart-topping music of the 20th Century.

The official nexAir Stage at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts was filled with luminaries, both presenting and receiving the night’s distinctions. This year’s roster of inductees was an impressive and diverse group: Don Bryant, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Charlie Musselwhite, The Memphis Boys, Steve Cropper, Dan Penn, Tina Turner, and perhaps the most surprising, posthumous inductee and “The First Lady of Grand Opera,” Ms. Florence Cole Talbert-McCleave.

McCleave was an American operatic soprano and one of the very first black female opera singers to receive acclaim and critical success in the 20th Century, as well as one of the first to record commercially. Though not originally from Memphis, it was here she eventually settled and during her time was a sought-after performer, trailblazer for African-American women, and active educator for young black musicians throughout Memphis, even co-founding the Memphis Music Association. It is a testament to their scope that the Memphis Music Hall of Fame has opened its arms to classical forms of music like opera: the tribute performance to McCleave, an excerpt from “Aida” by soprano Michelle Bradley, was second-to-none and, quite simply, breathtaking.
Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Don Bryant

Next up was Don Bryant, house songwriter for Willie Mitchell’s Hi Records throughout the 60s and 70s, husband to singer Ann Peebles, and gifted singer in his own right. Bryant is the rare combination of sincerely disarming, winsome, and talented. Backed by a bevy of some of the finest working musicians in Memphis, the Bo-Keys, Bryant let shine from that stage his unparalleled smile and inventive, heartfelt vocals. The Bo-Keys, who now tour regularly with Bryant, included: Joe Restivo on guitar, Scott Bomar on bass, Marc Franklin and Kirk Smothers on horns, Archie “Hubbie” Turner on keys, and the Memphis “Bulldog” himself, Howard Grimes on drums. The latter two bandmates, with Bryant himself, served as key members of the house band at Mitchell’s Royal Recording Studios, playing on some of Hi’s most celebrated recordings of the era.

One of the eight inductees was actually a group award. Six session musicians made up The Memphis Boys, the house band at legendary producer Chips Moman’s American Sound Studio, comprised of drummer Gene Chrisman, bassists Tommy Cogbill and Mike Leech, guitarist Reggie Young, pianist Bobby Wood, and organist Bobby Emmons. Together these men laid down the grooves for over 120 hit records between 1967 and 1972 for artists like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, B.J. Thomas, Dusty Springfield, and notably, on Elvis Presley’s last number one hit “Suspicious Minds.”
Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Extended family of The Memphis Boys

Of the remaining members, keyboardist Bobby Wood gave a sincere thanks to the city of Memphis while drummer Gene Chrisman audibly held back tears of gratitude as he accepted his award, and in an endearing moment of appreciation of those years he reminisced, “I’ll tell you it was such a pleasure…We had more fun than two Christmas monkeys.”

As the room bubbled with cheer and nostalgia, the house band and guest singers led a medley of the Memphis Boys’ greatest hits: “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Son of A Preacher Man,” “Suspicious Minds,” and “Sweet Caroline,” among others.

Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Charlie Musselwhite and Bobby Rush

Boundless blues entertainer Bobby Rush introduced his erstwhile touring partner, friend and Grammy-winning electric blues heavyweight Charlie Musselwhite. Charlie, gracious as always, serenaded us with his famous harmonica stylings on “Blues Overtook Me.”

It was a night of montages, as rapper Al Kapone stepped out to speak with an unexpectedly heartfelt appeal to support live Memphis music. As he stepped aside, dueling DJs live-mixed an audio mosaic of some of the most cherished hits to come from our city: “Hound Dog,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Gee Whiz,” “Pretty Woman,” “Hold On I’m Coming,” “Soul Man,” “Shaft,” “Love and Happiness,” “Ring My Bell,” and many others, on through more modern Hip-hop hits like “Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” This was followed by a brief but thoughtful “In Memoriam” video paying tribute to those Memphians in music we’ve recently lost.
Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Dan Penn

Grammy-winning producer Matt Ross-Spang presented the next inductee, composer, instrumentalist, and singer Dan Penn. One of the most prodigious songwriters to come out of the Shoals, Penn’s songs possess a permanence that not many can boast – most famed among them, Aretha Franklin’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” and The Box Tops “Cry Like A Baby.” Penn gave a brief and witty acceptance and returned to play another of his seminal hits, “The Dark End of the Street,” a hit for James Carr on Goldwax in 1967. At 77, Penn’s stunning voice still commands a standing ovation.

Native Memphian and dynamic singer Dee Dee Bridgewater got her well-deserved accolades from Royal Studios’ Boo Mitchell, son of legendary producer Willie Mitchell. Mitchell spoke of the recent work he has done with Ms. Bridgewater on her last record Memphis… Yes, I’m Ready, and ready she was: attired in glittering silver from head to toe, Bridgewater dazzled and shone. The jazz singer, Broadway star, and Grammy-winner addressed her Memphis roots and mesmerized the audience with her rousing rendition of “Can’t Get Next to You.”
Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Steve Cropper

Blues guitarist and brother to the late Stevie Ray, Jimmie Vaughan introduced the incomparable Steve Cropper. Guitarist, songwriter, producer, Stax house guitarist, and OG “G” of Booker T. & The M.G.’s, he’s responsible for some of the greatest songs ever recorded, having written for and worked with everyone from Otis Redding to John Lennon. Inducted in 2012 as a member of Booker T. & The M.G.’s, this year saw him inducted as a solo artist for his life-long accomplishments, and, a natural charmer, he treated us to a version of his Redding co-write “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay,” leading the audience through whistles at the end.

The final inductee of the night was to a lady born Anna Mae Bullock in nearby Nutbush, Tennessee, and known to the world as Miss Tina Turner. Though not present at the ceremony, we enjoyed an agreeable medley of her greatest hits to round out the festivities, performed by a collection of local female artists who did Miss Turner proud: “Rock Me Baby,” “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” and “River Deep, Mountain High” among others.

Memphis is a town chock full of heavy contributions to the music world – and these ceremonies, presenting so many timeless artists and songs in one sitting, are mind-blowing. It was a night of sheer celebration and a night of sober reflection. It was, as Chrisman mused with his distinct Southern drollness, ‘more fun than two Christmas monkeys.’

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Music Music Features

Do Right Man

The word “songwriter” is thrown around freely in the music business, but such ubiquity fails to convey the full spectrum of the craft. Memphis, of course, has had more than its share of great songwriters who transcend the more mundane world of tunesmiths who compose as a committee to fit certain demographics, but even in this rarefied world, some stand out as among the city’s finest.

Dan Penn is one such composer, and, despite his being a native of Alabama, so much of his finest work was done here that it’s fitting he’ll be inducted, along with Tina Turner, Steve Cropper, Charlie Musselwhite, Dee Dee Bridgewater, The Memphis Boys, Don Bryant, and Florence Cole Talbert-McCleave, into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame this week. Then, on Saturday, November 9th, he’ll have the spotlight all to himself when he plays an intimate show at Bar DKDC.

Dan Penn

It’s a rare performance by this icon, and a chance to hear the classic songs he’s had a hand in creating, from “Dark End of the Street” to “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” “I’m Your Puppet,” “It Tears Me Up,” and more, in a fresh, more personal way. I tracked Penn down to the farm in Alabama that’s been in his wife’s family for over a century, to find out what we can expect to hear this weekend and how he continues to listen to that inner voice that asks, “What have you done lately?”

Memphis Flyer: Do the old songs still come back to you pretty easily when you do shows like this?

Dan Penn: When I play gigs, I sing ’em and remember ’em, but as soon as the gig’s over, they’re gone. I don’t dwell on what I have done. You’re forever looking for a new song, you know, so I don’t have room in my brain for all the old stuff. Now, when I play, I got the lyrics right in front of me. I’ve seen a lot of writers who just like to make them up halfway through. And that’s all right, but that ain’t me. I like to sing the real words.

Are you still writing new songs, though?

Yeah, I’m still writing. I’m not hitting it every day, like I used to. I’ve got a lot going on. I’ve got a couple old cars here in Alabama, and I beat around on ’em and fix them. It’s a good hobby and keeps me busy. When I go back to Nashville, I turn back into an engineer and a songwriter. I mean, I’m writing all the time. I may not be putting anything to paper, but my brain’s writing it. I’ve written a lot of songs, but I’ve always had a little voice saying, “What have you done lately?” It’s a bad guy, but he kind of reminds you that you need to come up with something, you know? When I play a gig, I play the old songs exclusively, pretty much. That’s what people want to hear. And I appreciate them and thank God for them. But after the gig’s over and that goes away, I’m looking for another song.

William Bell talked to me about being a people watcher and building his songs out of seeing and overhearing people’s interactions.

That’s as good a place as any. On the street or coffee shop, whatever. I don’t do that exactly. But as I interact with people, I guess I’m looking for something. Some people actually carry the song titles around with them, almost. It becomes apparent. You can pick it up anywhere. It can come out of your head, or it can come out of somebody else’s mouth. But William Bell’s got the right idea.

When you do perform these days, you’re mostly playing the songs as a solo artist. It’s pretty different from the full band arrangements they have in the original recordings.

One thing about it, when it’s just the guitar and vocals, you can hear the song. You can hear the singer. Ain’t nowhere to hide. When you got a guitar going and a piano and everything else, sometimes the song gets shuffled to the side and it comes down to a performance. I guess I’m performing when I play on my own, but basically I’m just singing the songs. It’s the song’s night out.

2019 Memphis Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Friday, November 8th, at The Cannon Center, 7 p.m. $50 and $100 tickets available.

Dan Penn solo show, Saturday, November 9th, at Bar DKDC, 8 p.m. (sold out).

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Music Music Blog

Musical Memorial Planned Sunday For Swain Schaefer

CREDIT: courtesy Swain Schaefer Memorial Page

Memphis native and journeyman musician Frederick Swain Schaefer passed away at his Nashville home on February 16, at the age of 70. Though his playing never made him a household name, he was beloved by many in the Memphis and Nashville music communities, and was one of those players who made the local rock, country and soul scenes hum. Many of his colleagues will gather on Sunday, March 3 at Huey’s Midtown to pay their respects and play music in his honor. 

courtesy Swain Schaefer Memorial Page

Swain Schaefer

Schaefer began his life in music with one foot in the big band era, having studied piano with Memphis bandleader and music store owner Berl Olswanger. But as a teen, he quickly jumped into the rock ‘n’ roll game, playing bass with the Scepters. By 1965, only a year after they’d formed, the group was in Royal Studios recording their first single. The A side, their version of Bobby Emmons’ “Little Girls Were Made to Love,” took off with regional DJs. As Ron Hall writes in Playing for a Piece of the Door, the single “did extremely well in the tri-state area and made the guys local celebrities.” 

Musical Memorial Planned Sunday For Swain Schaefer (3)

But the B side, written by Scepters guitarist John Wulff, offers more surprises:  

Musical Memorial Planned Sunday For Swain Schaefer (2)

Schaefer played with other groups from the same era, keeping his keyboard skills sharp with combos like the Memphis Blazers. His multi-instrumentalist talents culminated in his short tenure as the Box Tops’ bassist, starting in heavy touring year of 1969, when Alex Chilton and Gary Talley were the only original members left. Indeed, Schaefer was in London with the group when Chilton’s disenchantment with their management came to a head, partly due to a travesty of tour planning that left them stranded there with no gigs. Yet, as related in Holly George-Warren’s Chilton biography, when the singer announced he would leave the group while in London, Schaefer threatened “to beat him up and put him in the hospital.” 

The Memphis Blazers, ca. 1967, with Swain Schaefer on organ

Such incidents notwithstanding, after the inevitable collapse of the Box Tops, Schaefer was a regular visitor to Ardent Studios, often with Chilton, in those pre-Big Star days. “Alex and I’d get loaded and go into Ardent,” Schaefer told George-Warren. “I’d play organ, and he’d play piano. He liked Scott Joplin and played a couple Joplin tunes like ‘The Entertainer’ pretty well.”

From there, Schaefer built a life around music, rubbing shoulders with a number of greats. Here’s a song he co-wrote with Dan Penn, featured on Irma Thomas’ album My Heart’s In Memphis – The Songs Of Dan Penn, released in 2000.  

Musical Memorial Planned Sunday For Swain Schaefer

Indeed, Schaefer’s writing and arranging skills earned as much respect as his playing. As The Daily Memphian‘s H. Scott Prosterman writes:

Schaefer co-wrote the song “Happy Holidays” on Alabama’s double platinum 1985 “Christmas” album. Among the Memphis and Nashville musicians Schaefer worked with over the years were Delbert McClinton, Ronnie Millsap, Don Nix and Sid Selvidge. He collaborated with Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Jimmy Griffin and John Paul David, and performed with Tony Joe White, Levon Helm, The Pointer Sisters, and with Ed Bruce on Austin City Limits. He was a member of the bands Wind Mill and Brother Love.

Jimmy Crosthwait, a bandmate and surviving member of Mudboy and the Neutrons, created marionette shows at Memphis’ Pink Palace Museum with Schaefer’s help. “Swain and I worked together recording the music and narration of several productions that I performed through many of those years,” Crosthwait said. “He did so without monetary compensation, and for very little recognition.”

A service was held Monday at the Church of Hope in Nashville, where Schaefer was the organist and musical director. In Memphis, a musical tribute hosted by Jimmy Crosthwait and Jimmy Newman will take place at Huey’s Midtown, on Sunday, March 3, 3-7 p.m. 

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Music Music Features

Soul Hero

Dan Penn’s contributions to popular American songcraft are inestimable. Peter Guralnick describes the Alabama-born songwriter as the “secret hero” of Sweet Soul Music, his dot-connecting chronicle of American soul music in the 1960s. Working first at FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals with Rick Hall, Billy Sherrill, and Spooner Oldham and later as a songwriter with Chips Moman and the Box Tops at American Sound Studio in Memphis, Penn distinguished himself as a gifted singer and musician who preferred to work outside the spotlight. He produced “The Letter” for the Box Tops, and the jaw-dropping list of songs he’s contributed to as a writer or co-writer include “The Dark End of the Street,” “I’m Your Puppet,” and the Aretha Franklin hit “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.”

This week, the Mike Curb Institute at Rhodes College is bringing Penn back to Memphis for a concert with keyboard player Bobby Emmons in the McCallum Ballroom.

“The scope of what he touched, from American to the Box Tops, is just incredible,” says John T. Bass, director of the Curb Institute, which studies and promotes Southern musical traditions.

The Flyer spoke to Penn in advance of the concert:

Memphis Flyer: I don’t know how else to ask. How do you write a song as good as “The Dark End of the Street”?

Dan Penn: That’s a good question. If you find out, tell me, because I’d like to write another one like it. Chips and me were really close at that time. We knew each other pretty good, and we had a lot of doggone respect for each other. And we’d had a lot of good times together. Also, I think songwriters, Southern songwriters at least, are inspired by Hank Williams. “Your Cheatin’ Heart” is about the best slipping-around song there is. Then Jimmy Hughes did “Steal Away.”

And you were at FAME when Hughes recorded that, right?

I got to watch all that go down. And I learned a lot. I didn’t feel like I was stealing from him [on “Dark End of the Street”], but he was definitely an inspiration. So you keep on trying to write this particular kind of cheating song. And in the ’60s that seemed to be highly important.

Having written hits already, when you finished writing “Dark End,” did you know it was going to be your “Your Cheatin’ Heart”?

I thought it was good when James Carr sang it. I can’t say that I knew it right off because we wrote it in a hotel room in Nashville, and it was a good while before we had the demo down where we could play it back.

You’re a great singer. Why aren’t all these Dan Penn songs Dan Penn hits?

I was no James Carr. But I was pretty good. I sounded okay to me. In the beginning, I wanted to be a rock-and-roll singer like everybody else. But I had this opportunity. People always ask, “Why didn’t you have the hit?” I tell ’em, well, I did! I realized pretty early on that a man can’t do it all. If you try, you’re gonna get scattered. If I got out touring on the road I can tell you one thing for sure, a lot of those songs I wrote would have never been written. And I just loved the studio, the producing, the writing. That whole end of it. I didn’t gig for 25 years.

But you play more now.

I started playing shows in ’92, and I immediately saw the benefit of that. I go places. I see different faces, different attitudes, and I get ideas. Sitting in your studio basement it’s easy to get closed in.

You were in Memphis at the city’s zenith. Hi is going strong, Stax is going strong. You’re at American writing songs for the Box Tops. How much interaction was there between all this talent?

To be honest, there was very little. I went over to Stax two or three times. Booker T. would come over and play trombone sometimes, like on Joe Tex’s “Skinny Legs and All.” It’s not like anything was off-limits. It’s just that everybody was busy.

And then it wasn’t busy.

It all went flat. Stax shut down. Chips left for Atlanta, and nobody else raised their head. I’ll tell you what, though, Memphis has the best recording air there is, anywhere. It’s better than Nashville, better than Muscle Shoals. I don’t know what to say except it’s funkier. And you know that’s what I like.

Songs like “Dark End of the Street,” “I’m Your Puppet,” “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” have been recorded so many times. Do you even try to keep up? Do you have favorites?

I like the hits. I like the originals. Nobody’s going to outdo James Carr or the Purify Brothers. I’ve heard many versions. Some may go in a different direction from the way the song was originally written, but I don’t care. People do that. I still get the check.

I love the story about how you and Spooner Oldham wrote “Cry Like a Baby” for the Box Tops.

I was the producer on “The Letter.” I’d always wanted to record a big hit. That’s why I was working in Memphis. So the record company said they wanted another one like “The Letter,” and I told them I don’t do sequels. I wanted to put out “Neon Rainbow” and it only sold about half-a-million. So I call Spooner and say we’ve got to write the next hit for The Box Tops. And it was like we couldn’t even write our names. We didn’t have anything and we had a session for the Box Tops the next morning. So we go across street to have our farewell breakfast and we sit down and Spooner puts his head on the table and says “I could cry like a baby.” And I said Spooner, that’s it.

Sometimes you get lucky.

You make your own luck too.

Look at all the people who synched up in the right places at the right time. You, Billy Sherrill, Rick Hall. And didn’t you even play on “You Better Move On,” or some of those early Arthur Alexander singles?

I did not, but I was around for that. Arthur Alexander’s manager Tom Stafford was also my manager. I was around Arthur enough to learn from him. His simplicity made me want to be more simple. If you write simply and play simply more people can get it. Jimmy Reed wasn’t exactly burning up the chord charts.

It will be good to have you back in Memphis.

Just give me some Rendezvous ribs and a chance to go over to Pancho’s in West Memphis. I’ll be happy.

Dan Penn, with Bobby Emmons

Rhodes College’s McCallum Ballroom in the

Bryan Campus Life Center

Thursday, February 28th

7:30 p.m., $10

For advance tickets, call 843-3786 or see alumni.rhodes.edu/danpenn