Dan Penn (born Wallace Daniel Pennington, 16 November 1941) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer who co-wrote many soul hits of the 1960s including "Dark End Of The Street" and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" with Chips Moman as well as "Out Of Left Field" and "Cry Like A Baby" with Spooner Oldham.
Penn grew up in Vernon, Alabama, and spent much of his teens and early twenties in the Quad Cities/Muscle Shoals area. He was a regular at Rick Hall's FAME Studios as a performer, songwriter, and producer. It was during his time with FAME that Penn cut his first record, "Crazy Over You" in 1960, and wrote his first hit, "Is a Bluebird Blue?" which was recorded by Conway Twitty in the same year, and was later covered by James Brown. The success of the #6 pop hit, "I'm Your Puppet" by James & Bobby Purify convinced him that songwriting was a lucratively worthwhile career choice. He later formed Dan Penn & The Pallbearers, through which he began to work with Spooner Oldham.
In early 1966, Penn moved to Memphis, began writing for Press Publishing Company, and worked with Chips Moman at his American Studios. Their intense and short-lived partnership produced some of the best known and most enduring songs of the genre. Their first collaboration, the enduring classic "Dark End of the Street", was first a hit for James Carr and has since been recorded by many others including Roy Hamilton, Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Elvis Costello, Frank Black, Gram Parsons, Richard & Linda Thompson, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt. It was also used in the hit movie "The Commitments" .
A few months later, during the legendary recording sessions that saw Jerry Wexler introduce Aretha Franklin to FAME Studios and her first major success, the pair wrote "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" in the studio for her, which went to #37 in Billboard in 1967. The song has since been recorded many times including by Barbara Mandrell, Cher, Etta James, Joan Baez, Marva Wright, Phoebe Snow and Willie Nelson. It has also been recorded with Japanese lyrics as "Onna No Sadame". In early 1967 Penn produced "The Letter" for The Box Tops. He and long-time friend and collaborator Spooner Oldham also wrote a number of hits for the band, including "Cry Like A Baby", another song which has been covered many times, including by Cher, Kiki Dee, Kim Carnes and Lulu.
 |
| Dan & Spooner |
Other songs written or co-written by Penn which have been recorded many times include "I'm Your Puppet" a #6 hit in 1966 for James and Bobby Purify, and also recorded by Sam & Dave, Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Irma Thomas, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Peter & Gordan and Tierra, "Woman Left Lonely" recorded by Janis Joplin, Elkie Brooks, (Do Right Woman) Charlie Rich, Cat Power, Irma Thomas, Rita Coolidge, Patti Page & Clementine, and "Sweet Inspiration" a #5 hit for the Sweet Inspirations in 1968, and also recorded by The Supremes, Vonda Sheppard, Rita Coolidge, and Wilson Pickett, and "You Left The Water Running" a #42 hit for Otis Redding in 1966, and later recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers, Huey Lewis, and Wilson Pickett.
Other notable songs written or co-written by Dan Penn are "I Hate You" recorded by Bobby Blue Bland and Jerry Lee Lewis, "Handy" and "Everyday Livin' Days" recorded by Merrilee Rush, "I Got a Feelin For You" recorded by Kelly Willis, "I'm Not Done Lovin' You Yet" record by Neil Young's wife Pegi on her solo album, Like A Road Leading Home recorded by Albert King and Jerry Garcia, "Nobody's Fool" recorded by Alex Chilton, "Time I Took A Holiday" recorded by Nick Lowe, "Where You Gettin' It" recorded by Theryl DeClouet, "Out of Left Field" recorded by Percy Sledge and Hank Williams, Jr., and "Slippin' Around" recorded by Clarence Carter and the Detroit Cobras.
Penn continued writing and producing hits for numerous artists during the 1960s and finally released a record of his own, the 1972 single entitled "Nobody's Fool". He was coaxed into the studio again in 1993 to record the acclaimed "Do Right Man" which saw him reunited with many of his friends and colleagues from Memphis & Muscle Shoals. He also has recently written and produced for the Hacienda Brothers.
He now lives in Nashville, and continues to write with Oldham and other contemporaries such as Donnie Fritts, Gary Nicholson and Norbert Putnam. He and Carson Whitsett have had their collaborations recorded by Irma Thomas and Johnny Adams and often teamed with writers Jonnie Barmett and later, Hoy Lindsey. The Penn/Whitsett/Lindsey team are responsible for Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up On Me" (also recorded by Joe Cocker), and Penn produced 2005's Better to Have It by Bobby Purify that featured twelve songs from the team. He and Oldham also tour together as their schedules permit.
In the fall of 2013, he was inducted in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. In 2020 Dan relesed his first full production studio album since 1995’s Do Right Man. Recorded in Nashville and Muscle Shoals alongside their finest musicians, Penn, the pioneer of Country Soul, turns in a performance as timeless as the genre itself with "Living On mercy". (Edited from Wikipedia)