Hey y'all~
If ya get a chance please stop by Claire Walker Holland's
DHS CLASS OF '68 website http://classof68.myevent.com/
Working with my old classmates has me reminiscing a lot about my life so I've started hauling out the archives to search for the bits & pieces of my memories.
College was fun but it was tough. I worked hard every summer saving my money & had a work study job at the Union Building which enabled me to work backstage at the rock concerts. I remember working for Elton John, Jethro Tull, Joe Cocker and The Rolling Stones. In fact, I met my future wife while working the gate to the floor at Jethro Tull. She flashed that pair of play pretties at me and next thing ya know she had full access to everything at that show.
I didn't get to travel at all while in college except for a couple of trips to the Panama City Beach each summer.
Before I settled down to work after college I took a couple of trips up to the Carolinas but I spent most of my college years working and saving my pennies.
My first job out of college was being a Psychologist 1 at Partlow. The first year wasn't bad. I saved up all of my vacation days, holidays and comp time so I could take off an entire month during the summer of '73. Greg Wright & I took my VW van out to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Greg had already served in 'Nam & I was still scared of being drafted so I wanted to check out groovy little hippy pads in Victoria, B.C. in case I needed to take an extended vacation. Driving back to Tuscaloosa, we visited Olympia National Park, Yellowstone & I got to hang out at Philmont in Cimarron, New Mexico for the first time since visiting there in July of '65.
The Partlow job came to a screeching halt one day in January of '74. I got attacked by a patient who almost took out one of my eyeballs so I took off a couple of days and decided to become a school teacher. The Colegio Americano de Guayaquil came to the rescue and enabled me to live in Ecuador for four months and get my teacher's certificate. Before leaving for Ecuador, Susan & I took the train down to New Orleans & we stayed with Jeanie Dowling and her husband Octave Livaudais at their house in the Garden District.
SUSAN FROM BACK IN '72
I returned to Tuscaloosa from Ecuador in September of '74 broke & broken hearted. Fortunately the head basketball coach & science teacher at Druid High got caught with his britches down during sixth period so in November I had a science teaching job on the West End of Tuscaloosa.
In '75, I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans again & took at least three trips to the Smokies. I spent a week hiking the Appalachian Trail above Cades Cove and really fell in love with the mountains.
The Olympics were in Montreal during the summer of '76 so I got this old gal to haul me up to Quebec in her Barracuda. We stayed with Thomas Wheatley and his wife in Hingham, Mass. and then toured Boston and the coast of Maine. We didn't make it to the Olympics but really enjoyed discovering Quebec City & Ille de Orleans. The girl I was with spoke fluent French so we had quite an adventure.
I finished my Masters at the Sea Lab on Dauphin Island in the summer of '77 and celebrated by going out to Austin to meet my old girlfriend Laurie Bensburg & we drove out to Santa Fe in my old '62 Impala. We climbed to the top of Lake Peak and hung out in the cafes on the square in Santa Fe. On our way back to Lubbock, we heard the news that Elvis had died.
Laurie, oldest daughter of Gerry Bensberg
I was getting tired of teaching so I was restless when I attended our DHS 10 Year Class Reunion in the Summer of '78. Ricky Blumenfeld told me about a sales job so I quit my teaching job at the end of July and started my new career as an underwear salesman out in the world "covering the asses of the masses." That didn't work out so another buddy of mine told me about a job out in California so I took off for California. I got to hang out in Austin, Philmont and Santa Fe again and really had a wonderful time in Big Sur and Yosemite but I had nightmares out there so I came back home. I got a scholarship to work on my PhD but in the spring of '79 I dropped out of school and took a job teaching in New Orleans. I got an apartment in Faubourg Marigny and got to hang out in the French Quarter & see why they call New Orleans an ELEPHANT'S GRAVEYARD.
In September of '79, I got my old teaching job back in Tuscaloosa. I married Debbie Emblom and for the next three years I settled down and didn't go anywhere except to Panama City Beach in the summer.
Debbie and I got divorced in '83 so I spent the summer living in Scott Gellerstedt's Gulf Front apartment in Reddington Shores near St. Pete.
Scott and I hatched a business plan to sell Panama hats so in the summer of '84 I returned to Ecuador. I attended the inauguration of President Leon and had a wonderful time except I got my wires crossed with Scott and didn't see him until we both took the same flight back to Miami.
We sold some hats but selling the excellent handmade sweaters Scott had discovered proved to be more lucrative.
In the summer of '85, I quit my teaching job so I could take care of my mother. She died on the day I would have returned to school so after taking care of Mother's funeral arrangements, I went out to Austin to see Laurie again before returning to Ecuador. I returned to Ecuador twice in the fall and winter of '85 and really got the sweater business kicked off in the spring of '86.
I returned to Ecuador twice in '86 to buy handmade sweaters, handbags, belts and earrings.
I also returned to New England again and got to see Thomas Wheatley again. He had moved up to Maine so it was great hanging out with him while I set up the sweater business on the coast of Maine.
During the school year, Scott and I spent all our time selling sweaters in sorority houses all over the South and Midwest. I spent a lot of time at Indiana University, the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Minnesota,the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue. We worked all the SEC schools and all the girls schools in Virginia and North Carolina.
I returned to Ecuador once in '87 and spent that summer in New England but I was getting burned out being on the road all the time. By Thanksgiving I was hanging out with the girls in Tuscaloosa and by Christmas I was married.
My wife got pregnant right off the bat so in February of '88 we went up to Michigan to unload our merchandise and then took a little honeymoon down to Key West.
On September 14, 1988, my son Christopher was born in Druid City Hospital so for the past 20 years I've been concentrating on raising him making sure that he was able to travel every summer. He's been to a National Scout Jamboree near Washington, D.C., sailed around Abaco Island in the Bahamas, canoed the boundary waters between Minnesota & Ontario, hiked Philmont, camped on the Ontario side of Lake Superior, visited New Mexico with one of his buddies, hiked portions of the Appalachian and attended many national and regional Order of the Arrow meetings as far away as Oklahoma, Iowa State University and Michigan State University.
I've published a bunch of articles on Alabama history and have traveled a lot in South Alabama & Northwest Florida doing research. On one trip from Tuscaloosa to Panama City Beach, I checked my trip meter on my speedometer and saw that we'd traveled 996 miles one way from Tuscaloosa to the beach.
2008 finds me opening an entirely new chapter of my life.
I still have my health so I'm looking forward to all the challenges my new life will bring.
I've still got plenty to accomplish but at least I can be thankful that
I'VE HAD A DAMN GOOD RUN SO FAR!
BEST,
ROBERTOREG
From Frank Tanton http://www.myspace.com/thebopcats
Toots and Stevie are my favorate Chromatic Harmonica players... But listen to Howard Levy.
He was the one of the first to use the overblow and overdraw techniques for chromatic playing on the diatonic harmonica... This allow a harmonica player to obtain all the missing chromatic notes in the Richter-tuned diatonic harmonica. You can hear him on the early Bela Fleck & the Flecktones recordings... He's also a world class Pianist...
Check out Howard Levy playing 12 songs in 12 keys all on one C Harmonica...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
RR:
Also, I didn't know Lindsay Hall was your cousin either! My lil sis took dance from her for years & became a baton teacher for Lindsay. Laurie (The Duchess) was a majorette at Young Jr & DHS. See attached photos. One is a VERY young Duchess riding on a dune buggy in our National Peanut Festival Parade. She was a part of the Talent unit. The other is the newpaper article announcing her as baton teacher. That one may be difficult to read. And if she finds out that I have sent you these old pics....she will K-I-L-L me dead!!!! And the Queen will be a has been...
A portion of a Chips Moman interview from GeorgiaRhythm.com
http://www.georgiarhythm.com/feature.htmlGaRhythm: So for about five years you didn't listen to music? Were you just trying to get reacquainted with Georgia?
Moman: That and just trying to get a better feeling about myself and the music and everything. It was a difficult time really.
GaRhythm: Now you've built a studio and you've started ChipsMoman.com Records. And you've hooked up with [producer / writer] Buddy Buie and J.R. Cobb.
Moman: Well, they were old friends of mine. My secretary [at American] was Sandy Posey. And Buddy Buie got his first hit - "I Take It Back" - that I recorded by Sandy Posey. So, Buddy Buie and I had been friends for a number of years - since the 60s. So we just renewed our friendship when I came back. We hang out, play golf and poker together. We sit up all night and mess up the house!
GaRhythm: Now you're in the Internet era and you're launching an Internet record label. As far as artists, you've got Billy Lee Riley, Billy Joe Royal, and Carl Perkins. Is that who you're starting out with?
Moman: Yeah, these were the first tapes I came to in a vault full of tapes. I cut all new stuff on Billy Joe. I only used a couple of old sides. And I'm really proud of the album. My son and I produced that together and my daughter sings background.
GaRhythm: It's a lot more relaxing to do it that way...
Moman: Yeah, it's a family affair.
GaRhythm: You have said that there's really nothing new in music. What needs to happen in the music industry?
Moman: I think labels right now are starting to have a problem. I think they've got some serious problems. There are some good records out but also a lot of bad records. It's just different. I think we're probably on the verge of something breaking through that's new or some kind of exciting new artist. You can kind of tell when music gets stale. In country music a lot of the sales have dropped off. I think it's time that something new happens. I don't know if I'll come up with it. But I do know that I don't want to continue being involved in records the way that I have been and with the companies running things the way they have.
What I'm going to do is stick with this Internet thing and see if I break through to have a hit record on the Internet. I'm going to be devoted to trying to make it happen. I think it's a great tool. I don't think we have to put up with the record companies dominating everything. Using the artist and writers and producers. Giving our money away while they don't spend any of theirs. So I'm going to stick with this and see if it can possibly happen cause that's what's interesting to me. I'm just going to hang in there and see if I can develop a company that can work on the Internet.
GaRhythm: That's cool! Can I tell people what else is in the vaults? Is there anything that you might want to hint about?
Moman: Well, there's no way I could name you what's in the vaults. I'm just going by years and what kind of heads are on the machines. I have a lot of 3, 4, 8, 16, 24, and 32-track tapes. Right now I'm working with a lot of 24-track stuff. And I'll be going back to the 16 and on back to the 8. And I might get out some of the mono stuff since that's easy. But that's kind of the way I'm doing it because it'd be hard to do it any other way.
Article about Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham
Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham - the legendary partnership that helped shape the entire course of southern soul music – made a live album when they toured the UK as special guests of Nick Lowe in 1998.
That album, called 'Moments From This Theatre' and hailed at the time as "a master class with two great soul men", has long been unavailable. It is, however, now being reissued by Proper Records on Monday 17th April to coincide with Penn & Oldham's tour this summer. The dates - perhaps their last-ever shows in the UK - will be announced in the near future.
The masterfully understated album features soulfully intimate renditions of many of Penn & Oldham's hits, including "I'm Your Puppet," "Sweet Inspiration," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," "I Met Her in Church" and "Lonely Women Make Good Lovers" — 14 songs in all, nine of them Penn-Oldham collaborations.
'Moments' gives music lovers the opportunity to hear the hits stripped down to their essentials, with nothing but Penn's deeply soulful vocals and acoustic guitar and Oldham's Wurlitzer and occasional singing. With these two consummate musicians, that turns out to be more than enough to cast a spell.
"You can put me and Spooner in a band and we just disappear, and our songs disappear — within a band," says Penn. "That's why we decided to start playin' some gigs where it was just us, where we could show our songwriting."
A native of Vernon, Alabama, Penn moved to the Florence/Muscle Shoals area while still a teenager and assumed the role of lead vocalist in a local group calling itself the Mark V Combo. When asked what kind of music they played, Penn replies, "R&B, man. There wasn't no such thing as rock. That was somethin' you picked up and throwed." He laughs. "Or threw." It was around this time that he penned his first chart record, Conway Twitty's "Is a Bluebird Blue", and became friends with Oldham, whose given name is Dewey Lindon. During the early '60s, 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.
Around that time, Oldham, who was then going to college in Florence, started cutting classes in order to hang around the studio, and, Hall, recognising the kid's keyboard chops, started hiring him for sessions. Oldham's reputation grew in this musical hotbed, and he worked at other local studios as well, playing the indelible organ part on Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman"—not on a Hammond B3, as is generally thought, but on a Farfisa.
"He had it on low growl," Penn quips. "There's one of them settin' right here in my studio, because of that record." As the keyboard player in the Fame house band, working alongside guitarist Jimmy Johnson, bassist Junior Lowe and drummer Roger Hawkins, Spooner played on groundbreaking albums by Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin, among others.
While at Fame, Oldham left his imprint on the sound and evolution of southern soul music with his inimitable keyboard playing, but he turned out to be just as skilled and distinctive as a songwriter. In the evenings, after the sessions had ended, Oldham would hole up with Penn, who was engineering at Fame and had the key to the studio, on songwriting sessions, and both immediately became aware of what Penn describes as "some sort of chemical deal together," and that led to effort and inspiration. "We'd write two or three songs a night," says Penn. "We were young. We just wrote and wrote and wrote, and we put the demo down, too." Their early collaborations included "I'm Your Puppet," which became a hit in 1965 for James & Bobby Purify, and "Out of Left Field," performed so memorably by Sledge. These boys had a way with metaphor. Together and separately, the pair also wrote hits for Joe Simon, Jimmy Hughes and Wilson Pickett.
"I became a staff keyboard player, and then Dan and I became exclusive writers for Fame Publishing Co. for about three years," Oldham remembers. "It was sort of an in-house thing, where artists were comin' and goin', askin' for songs, and there was sort of a built-in opportunity to try to be commercial songwriters, which both of us wanted to be. So, as fate would have it, we were in a good place at a good time. And we enjoyed the process of writing. We'd demo it, just him and I putting it on tape that night — we'd be tired and worn out from our endeavors, and then, the next day, there was a whole band wantin' to play in the studio, and we'd get them to do the demo. So we'd live with those songs a couple days runnin'. And then, if we were lucky, maybe two or three weeks later, somebody might want to record it, and we'd get to play it again.
"We got a song or two on a lot of albums, and I got to play on all that stuff and have fun," Oldham continues. "And Dan was learning to engineer, partly because he had access to the equipment at night, and he and would do our demos. He was a songwriter who wanted to produce and engineer; I was a songwriter who wanted to play keyboards. So we had similar but different sidelines. And he was singin' a lot, and I was not singin' hardly ever. But we had a good rapport, and the piano-and-guitar thing seemed to work well. I liked piano and he liked guitar. He had a great way with words—not that I didn't participate in the words. He and I both participated in words and music, but he was really there from the gitgo with his approach to words. We never knew where it was gonna come from—an idea or him strummin' the guitar or me strummin' the piano. We had a kaleidoscope of approaches. We'd make it all work, it seemed like. Whatever angle it came from, we'd try to connect on the idea of the song or the chord changes. If we weren't interested, we'd just move on to another one real fast. We'd usually come up with a few ideas, sometimes only one, sometimes none. So we've approached it from all kind of ways."
Says Penn of their process: "When me and Spooner are doin' it, I usually write the lyrics down on paper 'cause he's got his hands full with the piano, so we just get one set of lyrics. That's what I use when I sing the demo, and I always sing the demo, which has helped us get a lot of cuts in the past. Not that I sung it properly, but I sung it to where people could understand it.
According to Penn, the reason people hear touches of country in his brand of R&B is "because I'm an old hillbilly myself. Took me about 30 years to find out I was still a hillbilly. But compared to R&B, country is much easier. You ain't got to struggle. Anybody can sing, 'Because you're mine, I walk the line.' Go try to write 'Out of Left Field'; go find all those chords and what all that means. So a hillbilly I am, but in the '60s I was pretty smart to love black music, 'cause there was a lot of it to love. I loved Jimmy Reed, Bobby Bland, Ray Charles, Little Milton, James Brown… I always respected the black singers because they were always there — we was trying to get there. Knowing that the black singers wanted my songs inspired me."
A number of their classics were written for particular singers. "'Sweet Inspiration' was written for the group the Sweet Inspirations, 'Cry Like a Baby' was written for Alex Chilton's first band, The Box Tops, 'Out of Left Field' was written for Percy Sledge," says Penn. "I either was involved in the production or I was real close to the production teams, so when you're in the middle of a clique, you got the power to either do it right, do it wrong or get out of the way and let somebody else do it.
"But you have an opportunity to score, and sometimes we scored. By that I mean comin' up with a song that was good enough to get on the session. And then, if it came out and was a hit, the score was really complete at that point. So first you had to get on the session, and then the big question was, did it come out? And then the next question was, is it the single? At least back then.
"Some of these songs weren't written that way. 'Do Right Woman' wasn't written for Aretha, nor 'Dark End of the Street' for James Carr. Me and Chips Moman just wrote those songs and we didn't have anybody in mind. We worked great together while we were together—we're so lucky to have those two songs—but we didn't stay together."
In 1967, Penn relocated to Memphis and began producing at Chips Moman's American Recording Studios, with Oldham joining him a few months later. While at American, Penn and Moman co-wrote "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," which Franklin turned into a soul classic, along with "Dark End of the Street," stunningly recorded by James Carr, while Dan and Spooner came up with "Cry Like a Baby" for the Box Tops and later "A Woman Left Lonely," written at Dan's Beautiful Sounds Studio in Memphis, and chosen by Janis Joplin for her classic album Pearl.
When the golden age of southern soul came to an end, Oldham moved to California, where he played with artists like Jackson Browne, the Everly Brothers, Linda Ronstadt and the Flying Burrito Brothers.
Additionally, he played keyboards on a series of acclaimed albums by Neil Young, starting with 'Harvest' in 1972. In 2005, Young tapped Oldham as a linchpin player on his moving new album, 'Prairie Wind'. "He's so soulful and so gospel and so spiritual, he's playing from this special place,' Young says of Oldham. "He's so great, an amazing musician."
Penn and wife Linda relocated to Nashville in the '70s—where he recently co-wrote and produced Bobby Purify's comeback album, Better to Have It, in his basement studio. The session included Oldham on keyboards, naturally; alongside another of Penn's co-writers, Malaco keyboardist Carson Whitsett. The well-received album was released on Proper American in the summer of 2005. Oldham and his wife Karen have been living in Rogersville, Alabama — "close to home," he says—since 1991.
Penn and Oldham have now been friends and cohorts for nearly a half century. And 'Moments From This Theatre' celebrates, with characteristic understatement, this partnership for the ages, providing captivating evidence of their continuing "chemical deal together," which adds up to quiet brilliance.
* * *
Dan Penn talks about some of his hits:
I'm Your Puppet: "We'd done our usual, which was go get a barbecue plate or a burger. Then we came to the studio, and I had just bought a little 12-string guitar that sounded pretty good, so I just started playin' [voices the guitar line from the song], and Spooner just slid in with [he makes the familiar keyboard sound]. Next thing you know, we're into this song. I started writin' stuff down, we cut a little demo on it and me and Rick came up to Nashville and put some strings on it. Actually, it was a record that came out on me, I believe on MGM, but it was called 'The Puppet'—wasn't no 'Your.' My little record didn't do anything, and it went to the demo file. So when producer Don Schroeder brought the Purify brothers in, they went to the demo file and they picked that one out. When they started singin' it, they sang 'I'm your puppet'—they couldn't remember, I guess. And I didn't like it anyway; I thought it was too fast, kind of a rip-off of Sam & Dave, I thought. At least that's what I was thinkin' then. Later on, when it came out and became a hit, I loved it. It was easy to get on board later."
Out of Left Field: "People say it's a baseball metaphor, but I always think it's a farm metaphor, like an old tractor bringin' some hay in. The chords Spooner came up with and the places we went are kinda strange. I just love it 'cause it's a heck of a way to say 'She walked in out of nowhere.'"
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man: In January 1967, Atlantic's Jerry Wexler brought Aretha Franklin to Fame to record "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You." In an interview with British journalist Neil Rushton, Penn recalled the scene. "When she walked in she was like a young queen. Most of the guys in the studio pretended not to be paying too much attention to her, but they were looking at her from the corner of their eyes.
She appeared so calm, but I knew she was scared to death. She just sat down at the piano, calmly took a deep breath, lifted her hand up and then just hit the unknown chord! The instant she did that all the guys stopped eating or talking or whatever and just headed for their guitars and drums to play. You just knew history was going to be made that day."
Wexler okayed the recording of "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man' as a perfect b-side, provided that Penn was able to come up with a usable bridge on the spot. A few minutes into the job, Aretha came up to him. "She said, 'Dan, bay-bee, what you got?' I said, 'This is what I've got, Aretha: "They say it's a man's world, but you can't prove that by me,"' and she comes right back and says, 'I've got the next line: "As long as we're together baby, show some respect for me."' And I said, 'Thank you, Aretha.
But Wexler canceled the session the next day, choosing instead to continue cutting the rest of Aretha's album in New York. Since Moman was playing guitar on the sessions, Penn went along with him to New York. "We went to the Atlantic building up in the elevator and Jerry Wexler says, 'Dan, you and Chips come with me. He took us to the Atlantic studio control room and played us what they done to our little song. Aretha had redone the vocals, they had added her sisters (Erma and Carolyn) and I was hearing this big, big sound. It was astonishing, one of the most amazing moments in my life."
The Dark End of the Street: "We tracked at Hi, and a few weeks later we bought James Carr to American and did his vocal overdubs and I did some background vocals," Penn told Rushton. "We thought James was fantastic; he had made some good records before, and we knew we had made a good record. Did we realize it was going to become hailed as a masterpiece? Not really, but I liked the song and the record a lot. What did I think of Aretha's version? There are no other versions, not even mine!"
Now, Penn explains further: "I've heard other people sing it besides James Carr, but they weren't thinkin' about the lyric. I've heard a lot of 'heady' versions of it, a lot of singers that are mentally right up there, but you can tell that they're not thinkin' about those words. Singers shouldn't be thinkin' of anything except what that lyric means to him. And if that lyric don't mean nothin' to him, he shouldn't be cuttin' that song. That's why writers are so good when they sing their own songs—because those words actually meant somethin' to them somewhere along the line. Then you don't have a chance, really, to mess up. If you start thinkin', you're in trouble."
You Left the Water Running: "Otis Redding did a demo for me on 'You Left the Water Running,'" Penn told Rushton. "I got to be around him the day he cut Arthur Conley on 'Sweet Soul Music' at Fame. Otis was the most effective record producer I have ever seen."
Cry Like a Baby: "Everybody thinks I coaxed [Alex Chilton] into doing a lot of vocal tricks, but it's not true—he just had it. The only thing I ever told that young man to do was sing 'aeroplane' instead of 'airplane' on 'The Letter'—I was just tryin' to make it flow better.
"Anyway, we'd had a big hit on 'The Letter' [which Penn produced], and around 'Neon Rainbow,' the record company started talkin' about wantin' 'The Letter #2,' and I'd go, 'No, I don't do sequels.' I was pretty adamant, and still am, about that. But I did know we had to go uptempo. Nobody would send me any songs and nothin' was comin' to me, so I called Spooner and said, 'Spooner, we're gonna have to write this next Box Tops hit.' 'Ok. When do you wanna start?' I said, 'Well, tomorrow night.' 'OK.' We stayed in the studio two or three days, we'd write stuff down, tear it up. We were doin' everything we could to write a song—stayin' up, drinkin' coffee—but nothin' was happenin' and we were dead. So I said, 'Spooner, I guess we just need to go on home and forget about it. We just didn't catch any this time.' 'OK.'
"So we went over across the street to a place called Porky's to have a meal. We were sittin' there lookin' at each other all dejected, and Spooner just laid his head on the table and said, 'I could just cry like a baby.' I said 'That's it!' I'm sure my eyes must've flashed. I said, 'To hell with the food. Here's some money—just keep it.' By the time we got halfway across the street, I was already singin', 'When I think about the good love you gave me, I cry like a baby.' And then the key was in the lock to open the studio back up, and I said, 'Spooner, you run to the organ, piano or whatever you wanna play; I'll get the lights on and the gear runnin' again. So I got the lights on and he was crankin' up the little organ. I had the mike open, I got one of the machines going, I put on a reel of tape, went out into the studio and we wrote it before that reel of tape was done. After we did that, it was just like we'd had eight hours of sleep. Alex was supposed to be there the next morning at 10 o'clock, so my back was against the wall, and it was just like it dropped out of the sky. The pickers came in, I gave it to Alex, everybody loved it and we cut it in a few takes. So there's nothin' like right now. When you try your best, I think the Lord just gives you somethin', you know?" Penn adds, "I was so happy and proud to have produced 'Cry Like a Baby' another million seller."
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