Happy Times: Songs Of Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham Vol 2 / Various (CD) - CD

Details: The success of "Sweet Inspiration" (CDCHD 1284) and "A Road Leading Home" (CDCHD 1370) - not to mention constant customer requests for another volume - has more than warranted a further Ace dip into the songwriting catalogue of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. It's taken a while to come together, but we feel the wait has been more than worthwhile. "Happy Times" brings you another two-dozen examples of their stellar collaborations and goes even deeper into their sheaf of copyrights than our previous volumes have done. Here we feature tracks from their time working together in Muscle Shoals and Memphis, with a broad spread of repertoire than embraces deep soul, sweet soul, southern pop, country and even an instrumental. Star names here include Dan's pet project the Box Tops, Sandy Posey, Wilson Pickett, Ronnie Milsap, B J Thomas and many others whose careers intersected in the 60s with those of Dan and Spooner - to everyone's advantage. Almost none of the versions of the songs featured here have been on any previous Ace CD. Many have never been on CD at all. With a booklet chock full of information and illustrations, and the usual Ace attention to detail in the annotation, "Happy Times" is yet another salute to the words and music of these two magnificent songwriters.