3 Chord Truths - Exile‘s JP Pennington

We are back with another episode of our series "3 Chord Truths". In this episode, we talk with musician, songwriter, and producer, JP Pennington from the band Exile. JP shares stories from the band's almost 60 year journey from a local small club cover band to the top of the Billboard charts, as well as his personal stories of his roots in Kentucky. Exile currently has a new Christmas album with 8 new original songs coming out, as a follow up to last year's release of thier Christmas song "Kid at Heart"(also included) and are touring in support of it this holiday season. We thank JP for taking time to sit down with us and sharing his and the band's really interesting stories. We thoroughly enjoyed recording this episode, and hope you all will enjoy listening as well.

Exile Bio (from their website www.exile.biz ):

On September 30, 1978, the award-winning band who had initially set out to play small clubs in Richmond, Kentucky back in 1963, skyrocketed to world-wide fame with their multi-week chart-topper “Kiss You All Over.” In fact, it made Billboard’s Year End Hot 100 Singles of 1978 (Top 5) and later placed in Billboard’s The 50 Sexiest Songs of All Time (Top 10) category. The iconic song has been showcased in feature films such as “Happy Gilmore,” “Employee of the Month,” “Zookeeper, “Wildhogs,” and is played in it’s entirety at the end of the 7th episode of “Mindhunter” currently available as a Netflix original.

In the early 1980’s, Exile began to focus on country music. During their run on the country charts Exile had 10 number one singles including “I Don’t Want To Be A Memory,” “Give Me One More Chance” and “She’s A Miracle.” The band wrote their own songs, played on all their recordings and also proved to be prolific songwriters composing hits for other artists such as Alabama, Restless Heart, Engelbert Humperdinck, Huey Lewis, Diamond Rio, Janie Fricke and many more.  During this country phase of their career, Exile received 11 nominations including Vocal Group of The Year and Best Instrumental Performance for the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music awards.

The 5 original Exile members re-formed in 2008 with J.P. Pennington, Les Taylor, Sonny LeMaire, Marlon Hargis and Steve Goetzman. The Kentucky Music Hall of Fame members continue to perform  and have appeared over 100 times on the Grand Ole Opry.  The band has sold over 8 million records worldwide, with three Gold albums. Exile has lasted longer than most marriages.