VERNON, Ala. — Dan Penn’s coming home, y’all.
The hit songwriter, producer, singer and Vernon native will perform at the auditorium at the city complex at 7 p.m. on Thursday. Doors open at 6 p.m. Organizers told The Dispatch this morning that roughly 20 tickets remained. They are $10 a-piece.
“This is the first stage he ever performed on, and this will be the first time he’s been on it since then,” said Vernon Mayor Glenn Crawford. “He said he’s more nervous about this concert than any other he’s performed.”
The money left over from ticket sales and concessions will help fund Vernon city parks budget, Crawford said.
Penn either wrote or co-wrote songs for Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Jerry Lee Lewis, Percy Sledge and Clarence Carter throughout his storied career.
He wrote his first chart record, Conway Twitty’s “Is a Bluebird Blue” in the early 1960s. During that time, Penn began working with Rick Hall at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, first as a songwriter, and then as an artist under the names Lonnie Ray, Danny Lee, and finally Dan Penn, according to DanPenn.com. After Penn moved to Memphis in 1966, he co-wrote Franklin’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,” a soul classic that reached No. 37 on the Billboard charts in 1967.
In early 1967 Penn produced “The Letter” for The Box Tops. He and long-time friend and collaborator Spooner Oldham also wrote a number of hits for the band, including “Cry Like a Baby”, another song which has been covered many times.
Penn has released six of his own albums since ’73, including the The Fame Recordings, release in 2012. It included 24 numbers (23 unreleased) Penn had recorded at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama between 1964 and 1966. Penn was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2013.
For ticket information, call 205-344-1822.
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