‘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

Aretha Franklin was six years into a hit-free career when Dan Penn wrote her a song that would go on to become a classic, synonymous with her name. “Aretha walks in and she’s got this aura around her,” says Penn of the recording session, which took place at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. “The girl was special, that was obvious. I sang her Do Right Woman, Do Right Man, accompanied by just a little drumbeat and an organ.”

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. Penn has a seemingly endless stream of stories about stars like Franklin and the hits he wrote for them, although one singer – arguably the biggest of all – got away.