Living on Mercy

Album review

Who can say where the urge to write songs comes from? Wherever that fire resides, Dan Penn still feels its heat. Raised in rural Alabama, Penn was a charter member of the group of southern musicians who in the '60s collectively developed the funky, soulful aura known as the "Muscle Shoals Sound" before moving to another locus of southern music—Memphis, TN—where he formed a songwriting team with the mercurial and talented owner of American Sound Studios, Chips Moman. With Moman he co-wrote the majestic, "Dark End of The Street" (first recorded by baritone James Carr) and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" a tune whose righteous message inspired musical personalities as diverse as Aretha Franklin and Gram Parsons.

Now nearing 80, Penn who has recorded sporadically as a solo artist over the years, is back with a new collection that again shows his world class songcraft, his gospel/soul way with melodic hooks, and his always surprising sensitivity and incisive understanding of human emotions. While it seems like we've heard all this before, the presentation here is practiced and effective. The chord progression on "Clean Slate" where he begs for forgiveness or the somehow familiar choruses of "I Do" where he tenderly declares his love for, well, love, would easily fit on any '60s soul record from FAME or American Studios. The lyrics also show wordsmithery born of experience. In the rocked up, horn-accented "Edge of Love" he wistfully sings, "You got me walkin' on a high wire baby / Somewhere between yes and maybe/ Maybe the fall might save me baby/ From the edge of love."

Although he has a home recording studio, Penn chose to record Living on Mercy at a pair of first-class facilities, Creative Workshop in Nashville where he lives, and The Nutthouse, in Sheffield, Alabama. The production style speaks of his past: bass heavy, smooth organ licks, electric keyboards, background horns, drums turned down, the lead voice pushed to the front. The players are all veterans of the Nashville/Muscle Shoals nexus including keyboardist Clayton Ivey, who played on the original version of Penn's immortal early hit, "I'm Your Puppet." Although he knowingly sings the line "Your stuff is too old school/ The world has moved on," in "Down on Music Row," his tale of pitching songs, Penn, the players and his co-writers, are clearly imbued with more to say, and blessed with an almost instinctual ability to fall into a natural groove and embody "old school" soul music in all its glory. © Robert Baird/Qobuz