"...I Leave Myself Wide Open..."
It's one thing to be able to write great songs
that are name-checked as masterpieces some 45 years later (Penn has scribed
many as you will find out) – but it's another ball of wax to find out that the
man can actually sing 'Soulful' too - gargle warmth and personality with the
best of them –reminding you at times of great unsung white male singers with
black Soulful voices like Eddie Hinton and Terry Reid.
The premise here is this – Alabama’s DAN PENN -
a 60ts and 70ts gifted white boy in-house songwriter working with huge names in
the Soul and Rock world in Rick Hall’s legendary powerhouse FAME STUDIOS in
Muscle Shoals – revisits his old hits in his old stomping ground with his
playing buddies at his side. He will do 'his' versions of songs made famous by
icons like Aretha Franklin - her 1967 smash "Do Right Woman, Do Right
Man" on Atlantic Records, James Carr's 1967 hurting "The Dark End Of
The Street" on Goldwax, Percy Sledge's 1966 heartbreaker "It Tears Me
Up" on Atlantic, James and Bobby Purify's 1966 ode to devotion "I'm
Your Puppet" on Bell Records and "You Left The Water Running" -
a song so popular it was first done by Barbara Lynn, Otis Redding, Maurice
& Mac, Sam & Dave, Ralph Jackson and Wilson Pickett. In fact in the
case of "I'm Your Puppet" - a song also done by Dionne Warwick and as
a duet with Marvin Gaye and Valerie Simpson - I'd argue that the new 1994 Penn
version excels the sublime original and all other retellings - instilling the
new take with incredible pathos, genuine beauty and feel. I play this sucker
into the ground - always moving me. But let's get to the technical details
first...
UK released 31 October 1994 - "Do Right
Man" by DAN PENN on Sire/Warner Brothers/Blue Horizon 9362-45519-2
(Barcode 093624551928) was Produced by DAN PENN and GEORGE DRAKOULIAS, Recorded
and Mixed at MUSCLE SHOALS SOUND STUDIOS in Sheffield, Alabama and Mastered by
STEPHEN MARCUSSEN (he handled the 2009 Rolling Stones Remasters). The 16-page
booklet has liner notes from noted R 'n' B and Soul Writer/Historian PETER
GURALNICK and its ten-tracks plays to 37:15 minutes:
1. The Dark End Of The Street
2. Cry Like A Man
3. It Tears Me Up
4. You Left The Water Running
5. Do Right Woman Do Right Man
6. Memphis Women And Chicken
7. Zero Willpower
8. He'll Take Care Of You
9. I'm Your Puppet
10. Where There's A Will (There's A Way)
The band reunites Penn with:
REGGIE YOUNG and JIMMIE JOHNSON on Lead Guitars
BOBBY EMMONS, SPOONER OLDHAM, DAVID BRIGGS and
CARSON WHITSETT on Keyboards
DAVID HOOD on Bass
ROGER HAWKINS on Drums.
The MEMPHIS HORNS on all cuts are:
WAYNE JACKSON on Trumpet, HARVEY THOMPSON on
Tenor Sax
DOUG MOFFET on Baritone Sax (Flute on
"He'll Take Care Of You")
CHARLES ROSE on Trombone
BACKING SINGERS on all cuts are:
AVA ALDRIDGE, CINDY RICHARDS-WALKER, LENNY
LeBLANC, BUZZ CASON and GEORGE SOULE
DELBERT McCLINTON plays Harmonica on
"Memphis Women And Chicken"
It's true that the new songs are competing with
tunes so ingrained in your consciousness that it's hard to think of the newbees
as anything you could compare favourably with the old - but I'd argue that Penn
succeeds. His interpretations of "Dark End Of The Street", "It
Tears Me Up" and especially "Do Right Woman Do Right Man" are
spine-tinglingly good. And that "I'm Your Puppet" just does me in.
Not to be outdone there are 'new' old songs too - tunes he's returned to that
apparently lay unfinished - some for over twenty years.
There's the slow groove of "Cry Like A
Man" - maybe an answer song to "Cry Like A Baby" - a Penn tune
picked up by Arthur Alexander and Cher in 1969. The jaunty greasy food song
"Memphis Women And Chicken" and the truly gorgeous "Zero
Willpower" - a song you'd swear has to have been done by some Soul giant
back in the Sixties but turns out to be new - a modern day classic (lyrics from
it title this review). It ends on the Funky Brass groover "Where There's A
Will (There's A Way)" which is good rather than being great.
He would tour this album with just Spooner
Oldham - voices and keyboards - simple, eloquent and Soulful. And in some ways
that's how you would sum up this overlooked beauty of an album – an eloquent
slice of Modern Day Soul by a songwriter who helped shape its very foundations.
Get the 'Do Right Man' into your life soon as
poss...
