The name Dan Penn may not ring a bell, but he has written or co-written some of the greatest songs ever recorded, writes Joe Breen
Dan Penn is reaching for an explanation as to how he, a poor white boy from Vernon, Alabama, raised on country music and white gospel, could be responsible for writing and producing some of the classics of the genre known as country soul or southern soul.
Songs such as Dark End of the Street, Do Right Woman, Do Right Man, Cry Like A Baby, It Tears Me Up and countless more became staples for a generation of black singers in the 1960s and 1970s. Today these songs and performances are celebrated as models of laid-back intensity, a curious convergence of black rhythms, Southern culture and inspired singing and playing. Just the kind of music, indeed, that he and his musical partner, Spooner Oldham, play live in their low-key show, which comes to Whelan's in Dublin tomorrow.
As Penn remembers it, writing music in a black idiom was a natural development from listening to early black music: "There was a radio station in Nashville called WLAC playing black records and we got to hear it all from Jimmy Reed on, blues guys like Bobby Bland and Ray Charles, 'Retha [Aretha Franklin] and everybody. We got to hear them at night, not in the daytime. And yes, I kept my radio dial there all the time. So I was interested in black music from an early age, though I had been raised on hillbilly and gospel music."
This interest was not apparent at an early age, though his talent was. Born 64 years ago, Penn was still in high school when he wrote his first. "I was just a country kid, still in high school in Vernon and I wrote a song called Is a Bluebird Blue? It got recorded by [country star] Conway Twitty and it was something of a hit, top 20 on the hot 100, so that was my door-opener."
But it took a few years before he really got into his stride. "At first I was writing with Donny Fritz but then Spooner came on the scene. That was in Florence, Alabama, and we worked in a studio over a drugstore run by a guy named Tom Stafford - he is really the father of the Muscle Shoals deal."
Muscle Shoals is a nearby town - the sound took its name from it thanks to the Fame Studios there, which boasted the famous Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Muscle Shoals sound was used by many leading acts such as Paul Simon (Kodachrome and Loves Me Like a Rock were recorded there) and the Rolling Stones along with a host of great black performers such as the Staple Singers, Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett.
The sound was rhythm 'n' blues with a liberal dash of country and gospel. It was more black music than white, but the musicians playing it were more white than black.
"Rick Hall (the owner of the studio in Muscle Shoals) had a black singer called Jimmy Hughes and before him there was Arthur Alexander. And Arthur had a big hit with You Better Move On, that was the first big hit out of there. And it was played entirely by white guys. And then Jimmy Hughes came along and he had Steal Away and some other good hits and other than maybe a horn player or two it was all white people and Jimmy Hughes or Arthur Alexander. And that was just the way it went - it was a whole bunch of white folks who were just interested in black music and it just became the thing."
But this was the era of desegregation and racial trouble in states such as Alabama. It must have been difficult? "Well it wasn't a really difficult time to tell the truth. We didn't associate with anybody but the artists. There was Arthur and Jimmy and then later on there was Wilson Pickett, Joe Tex and all these singers, but it wasn't like we were heading the black community and so it (equal rights and so on) was something that had to happen but for us it wasn't such a big deal. Musicians are just musicians."
His most fertile writing period came after his band, the Pallbearers (they drove to gigs in a hearse) left to work as session players, and he opted to continue writing and learn the tricks of the studio in preference to a life on the stage. "I moved to Memphis and started writing with a guy called Chips Moman. He and I only wrote two songs, Dark End of the Street and Do Right Woman . . ." But they were two absolute gems.
And he was involved in another classic when he helped produce the Box Tops, led by the legendary Alex Chilton, and their classic single The Letter. "I didn't write The Letter, Wayne Thompson did. I only produced it. I wish I had written it - my bank balance would be a lot healthier."
Dan Penn's recollections have an endearingly warm glow devoid of bitterness or recrimination. They are punctuated by quiet laughter at the sheer fun of it all. Their last show here in 1999 formed part of the live recording, Moments from this Theatre, but the record doesn't quite convey the easy Southern charm of this pair of friends.
"Well, we're nothing if not relaxed. When we started putting this together I said to Spooner, 'Look we're just two guys who wrote the songs - I just like people to see two songwriters. And we're still together - you know most people can't even speak to each other after 20 years! I've always thought a lot of Spooner and I know he thinks a lot of me and we've stayed away from each other long enough to stay good friends."
Finally I ask him what is his favourite cover of his songs. "That's asking a lot but I guess if I had to boil it all down I'd say Dark End of the Street by (the late) James Carr. I've been so lucky to have all these great black singers record my songs but there was something about that particular performance on that song that no one has ever come up to yet. But they are all like children to me. I don't have children but the songs are like my children - I mean, I love them all."
• Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham play Whelan's, Dublin, tomorrow night