Artist: Arthur Alexander Genre(s):
R&B: Soul
Discography:
The Greatest Year: 2006
Tracks: 21
Rainbow Road: The Warner Bros. Recordings Year: 1994
Tracks: 15
You Better Move On Year:
Tracks: 20
Although his songs were covered by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Elvis Presley, country-soul open up Arthur Alexander corpse largely strange to the general listening audience -- still, his music is the stuff of genius, a poignant and deep intimate soundbox of work on equation with the best of his coevals. Born May 10, 1940, in Florence, AL, Alexander was the son of a bottleneck blues guitar player world Health Organization performed each Saturday night in the vapours joints scattered end-to-end the region. Rooted as much in stanford White nation music as ignominious R&B, Alexander was still in the sixth grade when he united a evangel grouping dubbed the Heartstrings. After high schooling, he worked as a hotel bellman, befriending Tom Stafford, an R&B-obsessed white kidskin world Health Organization fictitious himself a lyricist -- Alexander began adding melodies to his language, and through Stafford was introduced to a likeminded crowd of fledgeling musicians including future legends Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Billy Sherrill, and Rick Hall. In 1958 Alexander partnered with Henry Lee Bennett to write "She Wanna Rock," which Stafford then sold to Decca Records; land isaac Bashevis Singer Arnie Derksen recorded the sung dynasty a year later, and in 1960 Alexander made his solo debut for Judd Records with the mealy vapours phone number "Sally Sue Brown," written and produced with Stafford and credited to June (short for "Junior") Alexander. During the summer of 1961, Alexander and Hall crossed the Tennessee River to build a recording studio in the town of Muscle Shoals, transforming an deserted tobacco plant warehouse into one of the most legendary facilities in popular music history. The first platter incubated inside Muscle Shoals was Alexander's 1962 classical "You Better Move On." The product of the singer's roots in both rural area and R&B, its earthy, back country look awaited the deep soul popularized by Memphis labels like Stax and Hi, stretch number 24 on the internal pop charts following its release on Dot Records. Later covered by the Rolling Stones, "You Better Move On" earned Hall enough money to start work on a new Muscle Shoals Studio, merely the deal with Dot efficaciously halted his quislingism with Alexander, world Health Organization arguably never reached the same high once again. Dot producer Noel Ball side by side assigned the vocalizer the Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil composition "Where Have You Been All My Life," which barely scraped the Top 60. Worse, the mark interred the Alexander original "Soldier of Love" on the flip side. But his third gear Dot exploit, the self-penned "Anna (Go to Him)," was a Top Ten R&B smash and was later covered by professed fans the Beatles, world Health Organization as well recorded "Soldier of Love." Although isaac Merrit Singer Steve Alaimo enjoyed considerable success in 1963 with the Alexander-penned "Every Day I Have to Cry," Alexander himself struggled to deliver a followup -- "Go Home Girl" couldn't even crack the Hot hundred, and after a series of little-heard singles such as "You're the Reason," "Ole John Amos," and "Motown City," Dot ended his abridge in early 1965. Alexander soon resurfaced on the Sound Stage 7 mark with "(Baby) For You," merely after "Demonstrate Me the Road" a year later, he did not waiver a new record until 1968's "I Need You Baby." Accounts diverge as to the circumstances dictating Alexander's fade from recording and touring at this time -- he by and by admitted to suffering a tenacious and debilitating sickness, and thither were rumors he became something of an acerb casualty well before psychedelia blossomed in full. Sound Stage 7 issued a single a class for the remnant of the decennium -- "Love's Where Life Begins" in 1968, "Another Place, Another Time" in 1969, and "Cry out Like a Baby" in 1970 -- just differently he was virtually all absent from music for the latter half of the 1960s, albeit reportedly cutting a session for ABC/Dunhill that stiff unreleased. In 1971 Alexander resurfaced as a staff songwriter at Nashville-based Combine Music, functional aboard the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Billy Swan, Tony Joe White, and Donnie Fritts. Combine executives presently orchestrated a recording handle with Warner Bros., and he entered Chips Moman's far-famed American Studio in Memphis to record his first base LP in a x, a self-titled matter highlighted by readings of Dennis Linde's "Burning Love" (later a smash for Elvis Presley) and the Penn/Fritts quislingism "Rainbow Road," as mournful and beautiful a record as Alexander ever made. Neither the album nor its incidental singles made whatsoever noticeable commercial wallop, however, and he soon exited Warner Bros., in conclusion giving up on Nashville trey old age afterwards and returning home to Florence. There he signed to Buddah, going back to Muscle Shoals to cut his own interpretation of "Every Day I Have to Cry," a minor hit that would prove his net commercial success of note. "Sharing the Night With You" appeared the year following, and after i last travail for Music Mill, the ably coroneted "So Long Baby," Alexander quit the music business in all, drive a social services bus for a living. Elektra/Nonesuch coaxed him out of retirement to make a replication album, 1993's
Lonesome Just Like Me, just while on tour in financial support of the record he fell ill, passing away in Nashville on June 13, 1993.
