Dan Penn
Living on Mercy
(The Last Music Co.)
★★★★

DAN PENN is a blue-eyed country-soul songwriting genius and, at the age of 79, this is his first solo album in 26 years, recorded in Muscle Shoals and Nashville.

Hailing from Vernon, Alabama, among the big hits he penned are James & Bobby Purify’s I’m Your Puppet, Aretha’s Do-Right Woman, Do-Right Man, James Carr’s Dark End of the Street, You Left the Water Running by Maurice & Mac, plus hits for Percy Sledge, Bobby Patterson, The Box Tops, Bobby Bland and Albert King.

He co-wrote some of the sides here with long-time collaborator Spooner Oldham. Standouts include the title track, Clean Slate, Down on Music Row, Blue Motel, Edge of Love and Soul Connection.

This is about as laid-back as you can get nowadays — it’s almost horizontal.

Afel Bocoum
Linde
(World Circuit Records)
★★★★

CO-PRODUCED by Damon Albarn and label boss Nick Gold, Linde is a blend of traditional Malian music and modern sounds recorded in Bamako.

Guitarist and songwriter Afel was a protege of Ali Farka Toure and a member his band for two decades. He  appeared on Toure’s classic album The Source as well as working with Albarn and Toumani Diabate on their Mali Music album.

Here he is joined by the late afro-beat drummer Tony Allen and Vin Gordon of The Skatalites, who adds great ska sounds to Bombolo Liilo, while Avion is Congolese soukous, with the guitars of Mamadou Kelly, Oumar Konate and Lamine Soumano providing the complex interplay.

The 2013 civil war, with music banned by jihadists, blighted Mali, and Linde contains songs of hope and reconciliation. As Afel says: “If we’re not united, I can see no solution.”

The Allman Betts Band
Bless This House
(BMG)
★★★★★

FORMED in 2019 by the sons of some of the original Allman Brothers, the debut album from Devon Allman, Duane Betts and Berry Duane Oakley was a chart topper. They gigged relentlessly, but their European tour was curtailed after Allman was hospitalised.

They waxed this 13-tracker in Muscle Shoals and, having honed the seven-piece to perfection, Betts commented: “Once we got rolling, the floodgates opened.”

Like the original Allmans, there are lots of guitars, — electric, acoustic and slide — and a storming rhythm section.

Oakley performs his original The Doctor’s Daughter; Allman’s Much Obliged is a country rocker; the slide-based Magnolia Road is autobiographical; Pale Horse Rider is straight from the Neil Young/Crazy Horse songbook; and Savannah’s Dream is an incendiary instrumental.

Appropriately, Allman sums the album up as “the United States of Americana.”