Arthur Alexander

ARTHUR ALEXANDER

Photos courtesy of Dick Cooper

Arthur Alexander (1940-1993) was a singer-songwriter and a pioneer of what has since become known as “country-soul.” Born in Sheffield, Alabama, Alexander cut his first single, “Sally Sue Brown,” at SPAR Music in 1960. The following year, he recorded another original composition, “You Better Move On,” at Rick Hall’s FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. Released as a single by Dot Records, the song was a chart hit, and later (thanks to covers by the Rolling Stones, the Hollies and George Jones) became Alexander’s best-known song. Another of Alexander’s songs, the top-ten R&B smash “Anna (Go to Him),” was covered by the Beatles on their debut album Please Please Me. The Fab Four also covered Alexander’s “Soldier of Love” during live performances.

By the mid-1960s, Alexander’s commercial fortunes had begun to decline. One day in 1975, the down-on-his-luck singer turned up at 1108 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, thinking he had found the headquarters of Wishbone Productions. It was, in fact, Music Mill, a newly established recording studio which specialized in country music. By the end of the day, studio owner Al Cartee had agreed to record new material with Arthur and relaunch his career by helping him find a new label. The resulting single “Every Day I Have to Cry Some” was released on Buddah Records and became a minor hit, but once again, Alexander’s success proved to be short-lived.

Alexander soon left the music business and took a job as a bus driver. Following his 1990 induction into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, he returned to performing and, in 1993, recorded his first album in two decades. Sadly, Lonely Just Like Me would also prove to be Alexander’s last. The singer died of a heart attack in May 1993, just days after a well-received performance in Nashville with his new band.

Sources:

Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015).

Charles L. Hughes, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

Richard Younger, Get a Shot of Rhythm and Blues: The Arthur Alexander Story (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000).

Terry Pace and Robert Palmer, Times Daily, August 1, 1999.