This post is part of our occasional feature, Songwriter Profiles. If you have a suggestion for a bluegrass songwriter we might want to consider, please contact us.

John Pennell started playing bluegrass in Arizona while he was in school at Arizona State University. He grew up surrounded by music. His father played upright bass – the instrument that John himself now plays – in square dance bands and his uncle played fiddle and guitar.

When he was about 12 years old he started playing trumpet and continued that through his high school years. He started playing guitar during his junior year in high school.

Pennell got more involved in bluegrass when he returned to Illinois for graduate school. Paul Zonn (Andrea’s father) invited him to play with them and they played a lot around the Champaign, Illinois area. Paul Zonn acquired a bass fiddle that Pennell played through the music school. While Pennell was a composition student at the University of Illinois he wrote songs for their little ensemble.

He met Alison Krauss during this period and the duo, along with Nelson Mandrell and John Gantz, started a band (Silver Rail). She was very good about wanting to do original material and Pennell was able to get a number of songs placed on her first Rounder album. This got him started as a songwriter.

He moved to Nashville in April 1996.

As a bluegrass performer Pennell has played with Chris Jones, Harley Allen and, currently, Charlie Sizemore, in addition to Alison Krauss.

When did you begin writing songs and why?

I started when I was about 20 (1970). I was doing solo gigs on guitar and wanted to include some songs that I had written. I’m a fan of the Beatles and I study their song writing all the time and it always inspires me. When I got into bluegrass, initially, I wrote songs that showed a lot of their influence as well as James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell. As I became more involved in bluegrass I started writing songs more specifically influenced by bluegrass or country. It’s an ongoing synthesis. The first songs I wrote were “acoustic” and more in the James Taylor, and Simon and Garfunkel thing, but they could be adapted to bluegrass.

Many of your songs have been recorded by Alison Krauss; who else has recorded your songs?

Alan Jackson (Meat and Potato Man, As Lovely As You), Eva Cassidy (If I Give My Heart), Jeff White, Chris Jones, The Infamous Stringdusters (Fork In The Road, I Wonder), Cadillac Sky (Blind Man Walking), Sam Bush (Riding That Bluegrass Train, The Wizard Of Oz, Bless His Heart), Gina Jeffries (Never Mine) Charlie Sizemore (Devil On A Plow). (more…)

Friends of Julie and John Pennell will be delighted by the news of the arrival of their first born, Eva Lauren Pennell, born on March 1, 2009, at 8:22 a.m. She weighed in at 6 lbs, 11.5 ozs. Mother and daughter are well.

John Pennell is a founder member of Union Station and the writer of many of the songs on the first album by Alison Krauss & Union Station. He is also noted for Devil On A Plow by Charlie Sizemore, Carry Me Across The Mountain by Dan Tyminski, The Wizard Of Oz by Sam Bush, Lost And Found by Sally Jones, and Jacob’s Dream, another Alison Krauss block-buster.

John Pennell, bass player with The Charlie Sizemore Band, asked us to post this remembrance of his friend, Wayne Fields, who died on March 21.

Wayne played banjo with Sizemore, and is featured on his recent CD, Good News, released in 2007. Pennell is a member of Sizemore’s band as well, and is a noted songwriter in his own right.

Here is his heartfelt eulogy to Wayne:

Wayne Fields (1952-2008)

This letter is not only for Wayne Fields, and his family, it is just as much for me and anyone who knew him – and had so much more they wished to have said to him while he was here.

Wayne Fields was my friend and I loved him as did everyone who knew him. He was, of course, an incredible banjo player and musician. Being in a band with him is one of the greatest musical experiences I have had. He had that rare ability to make you feel so good about being on stage with him that it seemed to make you a better player. I recall looking over at him on stage and he’d give me that nod and wink to let me know he was enjoying my playing. This just made me feel like a million dollars. He always told me how much he enjoyed playing with us and how much he was looking forward to our next show.

And this from someone who was suffering physically about as much as a person could. When we cut our album “Good News”, Wayne was just a few weeks removed from chemotherapy and he told us he could barely feel his fingertips. Well, listen to that album and tell me if you think his playing sounds like a person struggling with a life threatening disease. He was the consummate pro. He played flawlessly on that album and was the spark that made us all want to do and play better. (more…)