MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Album reviews with Tony Burke
Latest releases from Dan Penn, Afel Bocoum and The Allman Betts Band
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Dan Penn
Living on Mercy
(The Last Music Co.)
★★★★
DAN PENN is a blue-eyed country-soul songwriting genius and, at the age of 79, this is his first solo album in 26 years, recorded in Muscle Shoals and Nashville.
Hailing from Vernon, Alabama, among the big hits he penned are James & Bobby Purify’s I’m Your Puppet, Aretha’s Do-Right Woman, Do-Right Man, James Carr’s Dark End of the Street, You Left the Water Running by Maurice & Mac, plus hits for Percy Sledge, Bobby Patterson, The Box Tops, Bobby Bland and Albert King.
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