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229 15 Years of tears to Go 1993–1999 Dan Penn, the white Alabama songwriter who had started writing songs, including Bobby Bland’s “I Hate You,” in Muscle Shoals many years before, in early 1993 was putting the finishing touches on his first solo album with Sire Records, entitled Do Right Man. When it came time to take the photograph for the album’s cover, Penn insisted on one pose: him on the steps of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, where Bobby was now doing most of his recording for Malaco, wearing sunglasses and with a jacket thrown over his shoulder, just as Bobby had posed for Two Steps from the Blues more than thirty years before.1 Unfortunately, the folks at Sire did not see fit to use this photo, but Penn had made his point: for him there was no one higher in pop music echelons than Bobby “Blue” Bland, Penn’s once and always hero. Bobby and the band continued touring, stopping in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on July 3 to headline the River City Music Festival at the Expo Center Fairgrounds. Also appearing were Earl Gaines and Microwave Dave and the Nukes, among others. Soon after, Bobby himself was back in the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios working on his eighth LP for Malaco. Years of Tears does away with the strings and reverts to a simple Muscle Shoals blues sound that features all of the Studio’s great rhythm and horn players, as well as backup singers Thomisene Anderson, Jewel Bass, Valerie Kashimura, and Frederick Knight. Knight was born in Bessemer, Alabama, on August 15, 1944. He attended J. S. Abrams High School there and played in several bands, as well as singing in the school’s chorus. He excelled enough to earn a music scholarship to Alabama A&M University in Huntsville, where W. C. Handy had once served as band director many years before; upon graduation, Knight moved to New York City to seek his fortune in the music business. Things in New York did not work out, so he returned to Alabama and continued singing in local clubs in and around Birmingham. Later, he sent a demo tape to Elijah Walker at Stax and Years of tears to Go: 1993–1999 230 was hired. His first release for Stax, “I’ve Been Lonely for So Long,” became a number 8 R&B hit in 1972. In 1975 he scored again with “I Betcha Didn’t Know That” on Stax subsidiary Truth Records. When Stax and its subsidiaries folded later that year Knight moved to Juana Records, where he wrote and produced Anita Ward’s smash hit “Ring My Bell” in 1979, as well as his own 1981 hit “The Old Songs,” which was covered by Barry Manilow and became a number 15 pop hit later that year. Knight continued to write songs and produce records for Juana, as well as its distributor, TK Records, until TK was acquired by Roulette Records in 1980. Shortly thereafter, he joined the Malaco staff to write songs and produce records.2 Three of the tunes on Years of Tears were written and produced by Knight: “I Just Tripped on a Piece of Your Broken Heart,” “Sweet Lady Love,” and “There’s a Stranger in My House,” which was written after Knight heard a Ronnie Milsap song with the same title. “When I heard it I thought it should be something else,” Knight said. “He was talking about an influence from outside; another guy interfering with their relationship. That’s what his story idea was. But when I heard it, I immediately said, ‘No, the stranger needs to be her! That’s the way I went with it. [Malaco] had zeroed in on a formula with Bobby of just being basic blues. You don’t want to try to get too slick, you try to keep it within the comfort zone of Bobby. That’s primarily what I tried to do on that particular track, just give him a basic groove that he could lock in on with a good singalong melody.”3 The album has a decidedly looser, more swinging feel than previous Malaco efforts, partly because of Knight’s songs, but also because of the incomparable chemistry among the veteran Muscle Shoals musicians, prominently featuring Clayton Ivey on keyboards and Jimmy Johnson on guitar. Other highlights include Larry Addison’s title track, “Years of Tears to Go,” a sad “St. James Infirmary”–like poor man’s anthem; George Jackson and George Soule...

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