Little Zoologist, Dan Taylor

We have received many requests to add Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham to our songwriter series. It’s never really been about if we would, so much as when. With 2011 being something of a “Year Of Southern Soul” for Ace and Kent, what better way to kick it off than with a genius gathering of 24 of the best songs ever to bear their names below the title. “Sweet Inspiration” does a bang-up job of assembling the key songs Dan and Spooner wrote together during the 1960s and early 1970s. A quick look at the track listing will show prospective buyers that my co-compiler Bob Dunham and I have tried hard to make sure that there’s a version of every major Penn and Oldham composition included. We haven’t always chosen the obvious versions, so there will be some nice surprises here for even the most avid collectors. It was difficult to bring what started out as a massive wish list down to just 24 selections, but we think our choices do justice to the performers of the songs and, most importantly, the writers.

Collection includes: 'Taylor Swift' (2006) SHM-CD + Deluxe Edition; 'Fearless' (2008) SHM-CD + Platinum Edition (CD+DVD); 'Speak Now' (2010) 2CD Deluxe Edition; 'Red' (2012) 2CD Deluxe Edition; '1989 D.L.X.' (2014) (CD+DVD).

If James Taylor epitomized the definition and the original, late-'60s incarnation of the term singer/songwriter, Dan Fogelberg exemplified the late-'70s equivalent of that term at its most highly developed and successful, with a string of platinum-selling albums and singles into the early '80s and a long career afterward, interrupted only by a health crisis that led to his untimely death in 2007. He came out of a musical family, born Daniel Grayling Fogelberg on August 13, 1951, in Peoria, IL, where his father was an established musician, teacher, and bandleader. His first instrument was the piano, which he took to well enough, and music mattered to him more than the sports that were the preoccupation of most of the boys around him.