Soul Hero Dan Penn Comes Back to Memphis for a Concert at Rhodes

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/soul-hero/Content?oid=3356611

From the site:

 Memphis Flyer: I don't know how else to ask. How do you write a song as good as "The Dark End of the Street"?
Dan Penn: That's a good question. If you find out, tell me, because I'd like to write another one like it. Chips and me were really close at that time. We knew each other pretty good, and we had a lot of doggone respect for each other. And we'd had a lot of good times together. Also, I think songwriters, Southern songwriters at least, are inspired by Hank Williams. "Your Cheatin' Heart" is about the best slipping-around song there is. Then Jimmy Hughes did "Steal Away."

And you were at FAME when Hughes recorded that, right?
I got to watch all that go down. And I learned a lot. I didn't feel like I was stealing from him [on "Dark End of the Street"], but he was definitely an inspiration. So you keep on trying to write this particular kind of cheating song. And in the '60s that seemed to be highly important.

Having written hits already, when you finished writing "Dark End," did you know it was going to be your "Your Cheatin' Heart"?
I thought it was good when James Carr sang it. I can't say that I knew it right off because we wrote it in a hotel room in Nashville, and it was a good while before we had the demo down where we could play it back.