{"id":20043,"date":"2020-12-22T05:30:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T10:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20043"},"modified":"2020-11-09T16:46:07","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T21:46:07","slug":"dan-penn-have-mercy-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/22\/dan-penn-have-mercy-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Penn: Have ‘Mercy’! Part 2 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a> …<\/i><\/p>\n

Asked if there\u2019s a set of rules he follows when making an album, Penn has a ready answer. \u201cNo,\u201d he says. \u201cNo rules. Just throw it all out there and do your best. When you’re cutting, you just hope everybody plays good and you sing good.\u201d After pausing a moment to further contemplate the question, he says that he can\u2019t think of anything he does in a session that\u2019s special.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just get the musicians in and show them a song,\u201d he says. \u201cThey write a chord chart, and we start playing. If you’ve got great musicians, it usually comes right up. And that’s the only principle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Penn admits that it\u2019s often impractical to assemble a roomful of musicians in one place at one time to record in his preferred old-school manner. \u201cI\u2019m glad to have a real band on my record, but you can’t hardly get a budget for that any more,\u201d he says. He covered the expenses for making the album himself, with the understanding that if the finished product was good, London-based label The Last Music Co. would release it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew [Last Music president] Malcolm Mills was wanting it,\u201d Penn says with a good-natured laugh. \u201cHe had offered me a \u2018nut\u2019 on it if he liked it. He loved it, so the check is in the mail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listening to Living on Mercy<\/i> \u2013 and talking about the album with its creator \u2013 one gets the distinct impression that its making was a very enjoyable experience for all concerned. Penn says that his fellow musicians \u201cwere all wanting me to make a good record, and you can hear that. They had a good time, and I had a good time; It was all fun.\u201d And for Dan Penn, fun is a key element for a successful recording session. \u201cFun goes right on your record, just like distress goes right on your record,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The album was made in two sets of recording sessions. The first took place at Buzz Cason\u2019s Creative Workshop in Nashville, an historic studio used by a long list of top artists including The Doobie Brothers, the Faces, Leon Russell, Roy Orbison, Olivia Newton-John and many others. \u201cI cut the first six songs there, and then we took three or four weeks off for some reason or another,\u201d Penn says.<\/p>\n

At that point, Penn still found himself several songs short of an album. So he did what he always does: he wrote more.<\/p>\n

But once those new songs were ready, he found that the Nashville musicians he wanted weren\u2019t available. \u201cI couldn’t get the pickers there,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were all busy, and I couldn’t make it all line up. It’s pretty tough to get these really good pickers and really good studios together.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dan Penn knows plenty of good musicians, and he has access to the best studios. \u201cI went got a hold of Jimmy Nutt, down at the NuttHouse [Recording Studio], in Sheffield\/Muscle Shoals, Alabama,\u201d he says. \u201cJimmy helped me put it together, we got the musicians all lined up, and suddenly we had a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Living on Mercy<\/i> is of a piece with Penn\u2019s writing for other artists. He says that it\u2019s never been his goal to write with an ear toward a particular genre. \u201cI always liked R&B pop, and pop music period,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I always try to just write straight ahead: Not too much blues, not too much country.\u201d He believes that approach has the potential of hitting the widest possible audience. \u201cAt least, it used to,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cThese days, you don’t hit nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n

With so many classic songs to his credit, it stands to reason that Dan Penn would have some good ideas regarding what makes a great one. \u201cThe hook: that\u2019s always good,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd for me, it\u2019s the groove.\u201d But what about lyrics? Not quite as important, Penn believes.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people, they’re really centered on the lyrics,\u201d he says. \u201cI’m okay with good lyrics, but to me, the groove is above the lyrics.\u201d With a hint of bemusement, he adds, \u201cI get tired of people in Nashville talking about lyrics, lyrics, lyrics.\u201d What a great song really<\/i> needs, he says, \u201cis something that you can shake a leg to.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to wonder if live audiences will get the opportunity to shake a leg to any of the tunes from Living on Mercy<\/i>. In the short term, at least, the COVID-19 pandemic makes that an unlikely prospect. But although challenges will remain even post-pandemic, Penn remains open to the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s all to be seen,\u201d he says. Speaking about the period prior to the pandemic, he notes the he and Spooner Oldham still did shows. \u201cAnd on a good night, we were \u2026 pretty good!\u201d But he acknowledges that \u2013 not unlike the difficulty in getting musicians together for a Nashville session \u2013 putting together a touring band isn\u2019t a simple task.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a lot of rehearsals and a lot of money to move these guys around,\u201d Penn says. \u201cIf we’re gonna play big shows or overseas, it would take some doing to get them all together and get them there. If I’m gonna play, I’d like to have them.\u201d But he allows that he has already had some conversations with Clayton Ivey, the featured keyboardist on Living on Mercy<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cClayton\u2019s kind of the [band] leader,\u201d Penn says. \u201cAnd he says, yeah it can be done. So after all this stuff is over, we might be able to go play behind this record. I sure would like to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One … Asked if there\u2019s a set of rules he follows when making an album, Penn has a ready answer. \u201cNo,\u201d he says. \u201cNo rules. Just throw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51],"tags":[4374],"class_list":["post-20043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","tag-dan-penn","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20049,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20043\/revisions\/20049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}