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‘Elvis was as pilled up as me!’ Dan Penn on writing hits for Aretha, Otis, Dolly and more

He was the boy from Alabama who wrote a hit while still at school. And the classics just kept coming – from I’m Your Puppet to Do Right Woman. The great songwriter relives his days with the stars

It was 1967 and Do Right Woman, Do Right Man – which Penn co-wrote with Chips Moman – spent 11 weeks in the US charts, peaking at No 9 and ultimately making it into Rolling Stone’s Greatest Songs of All Time list. “I learned from watching him work, soaking it up.” In 1961, Hall moved his Fame Studios to nearby Muscle Shoals and continued to record local black singers, with young Penn employed to provide songs. Just a bunch of screaming Moman next assigned Penn production duties for a Memphis band called The Box Tops, giving him a tape of songs as possible material.

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