A tribute to Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham

Have I posted about Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham before? Surely among the very best ever song-writers, and yet relatively little known. Here are a few of their songs, with links to blog posts featuring those songs (and usually either mp3 downloads or YouTube footage). (This post inspired by the Ella Moon song at Sir Shambling I reached via Andrew.)

• Woman Left Lonely. Recorded by Ella Moon, Janis Joplin, Cat Power and Kristin Oppenheim.
• Dark End of the Street (Penn and Chips Momam). Recorded by James Carr, Ray Hamilton, Dolly Parton, Oscar Toney Jr, Jim James, Alex Chilton and Teenage Fan Club, Cat Power and dozens of others.
• I'm Your Puppet. Recorded by James and Bobby Purify and the Drive By Truckers and lots of others. Sampled by Granddaddy I.U. and others.
  
• Uptight, Good Man. Recorded by Laura Lee
• Moments from this theater. Recorded by John Prine and Mac Wiseman
• You Left the Water Running. Recorded by Otis Redding, WC Clark and Bobby Purify.
• Cheater Man. Recorded by Irma Thomas.
• Rainbow Road. Recorded by Arthur Alexander.
• If You Want It, Come and Get It. Recorded by Irma Thomas.
  

Sometimes they've recorded their own songs too:

• Rainin' in Memphis (Dan Penn)

They've also played the music of other people:

• Sail Away (Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee)
• Adios Amigo (Arthur Anderson)
  

And been backing musicians for others:

• Laura Lee
• Percy Sledge
• Jeb Loy Nichols
• Drive By Truckers - by themselves and with Bettye Lavette
• JJ Cale
• Neil Young
• Arthur Alexander
  

And produced the music of others:

• The Box Tops featuring Alex Chilton (Dan Penn)

And inspired still more:

• Shade Tree

And that's just for starters.

P.S. What's your favourite Penn and Oldham version?
P.P.S. How did I forget "Do Right Man, Do Right Woman", a Penn-Moman song, recorded by Aretha, Gram Parsons, William Bell and others.

P.P.P.S. Jogo sent me this list of YouTube videos of "Dark End of the Street" (comments are his):

• Dan Penn (what a genius)
• James Carr (da kine)
• Percy Sledge (da kine)
• Diamanda Gallas (unbelievably bad, horrible)
• The Commitments (much better than you'd imagine)
• The Flying Burrito Brothers (too young for this song)
• Cat Power (disturbing, perhaps a joke?)
• Ysabellabrave (!) (odd, endearing)
• Eva Cassidy (OMG!)
• Ry Cooder (eh, not exactly) (strange)
• Elvis Costello (not too good)
• Pat Kelly (terrible, a crime against the song)

There were a few more, but so completely out of their depths that I did not include them.


Bob's beats genre keywords: country music, soul music.
Bob's beats artist keywords: Penn and Oldham, Bettye Lavette, Dolly Parton.