Covered: Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham, Volume 2: 1968-2023

Here's the second and final album of the Covered series for the songwriting team of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham.

In the first volume, I noted that Penn and Oldham had a lot of success writing hit songs from about 1966 to 1968, while based in Memphis, Tennessee. The first song here is from 1968. But after that, there was a sharp drop with their musical successes. Penn later claimed that there was a lot of fruitful collaboration between white songwriters like Spooner and him and the black singers they were mainly writing for during that time period, but that changed as the years went on. He saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 as a key moment. After that, race became more of an issue, and the expectation grew that soul music songs sung by black singers would be written by black songwriters too.

Due to this changed environment, Penn and Oldham split up. Oldham moved to Los Angeles, where he found a lot of success playing keyboards as a session musician. That continued for decades, with him playing on albums by the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Aretha Franklin, Jackson Browne, the Everly Brothers, J.J. Cale, Linda Ronstadt, and many, many more. 

Meanwhile, Penn moved to Nashville, the home of country music, and tried to find success writing country songs. However, although his style had always been an interesting combination of soul and country music, he didn't do well writing just  for country singers. In 1973, he finally released his first solo album, "Nobody's Fool." While it was critically acclaimed, it sold very little. He did have some success as a songwriter and/or producer, but in a low-key way.

In 1994, Penn and Oldham reunited for Penn's second solo album, "Do Right Man." This mostly consisted of Penn's versions of his biggest hits from the 1960s. It was critically acclaimed. And while it also wasn't a big seller, it generated enough interest for Penn and Oldham to essentially start a new career as duo, going on tour to promote the occasional new album by Penn. Since then, Penn has released three more studio albums. The two of them have built up a following. As I write this in 2025, they are still going on tour, despite the fact that they're both in their early eighties.

Penn continues to write new songs, though it seems not often with Oldham anymore. He's had the occasional successful late career song. For instance, "Don't Give Up on Me" was the title track to Solomon Burke's acclaimed 2002 album by that same name. And "Memphis Women and Chicken" from Penn's 1994 album is usually performed in the concerts by Penn and Oldham.

Most of the songs here were written by Penn with others instead of Oldham. However, "Lonely Women Make Good Lovers" was written by Oldham without Penn. Unlike the hit-filled Volume 1, there really aren't any big hits here, though arguably some could be considered classics, and the songwriting is still at a consistently high level. Some of the songs were written much earlier than when the versions here were recorded. For instance, "Keep On Talking," recorded by Texas in 2023, was first released by someone else in 1965. In cases like that, these are the versions I like best.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 I Met Her in Church (Box Tops)
02 A Woman Left Lonely (Janis Joplin)
03 Rainbow Road (Percy Sledge)
04 Lonely Women Make Good Lovers (Bob Luman)
05 Zero Willpower (Irma Thomas)
06 Like a Road Leading Home (Jerry Garcia Band)
07 Where There's a Will [There's a Way] (Dan Penn)
08 Time I Took a Holiday (Nick Lowe)
09 Don't Give Up on Me (Solomon Burke)
10 Memphis Women and Chicken (Gary Nicholson)
11 I Hate You (Nicki Bluhm)
12 Keep On Talking (Texas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uRC6i55G

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ImNWdOz5yf5WAU7/file

I don't know what year the cover photo is from. But I did find this photo of the two of them together, probably in the 1990s. I used Photoshop to move them closer together.