Arthur Alexander: Classic or Dud/S & D?

Interview here at about 1:36
http://thehound.net/19930417/

"Arthur, sell me real fine. You just get better each time, okay"

Despite the opinions above, the comeback record rules. Very beautiful, very sad.
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Tuesday, May 24, 2005 12:37 PM (6 years ago)

Just listened to the Monument stuff and nothing's really grabbing me except the Neil Diamond song "Glory Road." Tim, you should check out this great lost single which came out on Buddah ( but now they corrected the spelling and it's Buddha) Sharing The Night Together, Arthur Alexander - The Original Is Still The Greatest

Yeah, nice sound on that. The follow-up to "Every Day I Have to Cry Some," which is great.

No one's talked about the early records yet - "Soldier of Love," "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues," "Anna," "You Better Move On," "Where Have You Been All My Life." He was a great stylist, but that's also clever songwriting on a Chuck Berry level.

ha, been listening to arthur alexander a lot lately. he's great.

Chuck Berry comparison makes sense.

At this point I like the comeback album the best, but obviously "Rainbow Road," "Anna" and plenty of singles.

he's got one of those voices with a built-in slight out-of-tuneness that works pretty well most of the time. he sounds wounded and confused a lot. I like him but I don't think he really ranks up there with the greatest soul singers at all, he's a stylist, and his historical significance as the guy who first had hits out of Muscle Shoals is worth noting, as is his songwriting ability. pretty simple stuff actually. The Monument stuff is mostly good, and the 1972 Arthur Alexander LP, the one with "Rainbow Road," is good. He never had much common sense about how to manage his life or career.

Don't know if anybody would say he was the greatest soul singer, but he might be the greatest at what he does, which I guess they call country soul. There is a story about when Otis Redding recorded "Johnny('s) Heartbreak" that Otis started to do his schtick at the end of the song and Arthur told him man, if you do that people aren't going to understand what the song is about, but Otis had to be Otis. When you listen to Arthur sing it, you have no doubt as to what it's about.

I interviewed Dan Penn recently, he knew Arthur Alexander and everything. I mentioned "country soul" and a dark look came over his face. Dan Penn told me that he'd been at some event in Nashville and some poor soul was talking about the affinity between country and soul music, and asked Dan Penn if he thought country and soul didn't have a lot in common. Dan Penn reared back and said, "NO, I DO NOT."

Well of course he would say that, he's stubborn and ornery and he's NOBODY'S FOOL.

Did you talk to him about Arthur at all? As I may have mentioned elsewhere, years ago I went to the Bottom Line to see Dan and Spooner at one of those Vin Scelsa songwriter things and when they asked Dan who his favorite songwriter and what song of that songwriter's he wished that he had written he said "Arthur Alexander, 'You Better Move On'"

and anyway, I don't Arthur Alexander is country soul at all, because I don't really think the term means anything. But in the vein of story songs cut in someplace other than Memphis, which doesn't have any "country soul" in its city limits, I think Freddie North's Cuss the Wind, on a Nashville label, 1975, is way better than Arthur Alexander's stuff. Country music is a barely musical form with emphasis on the words; soul music is a barely verbal form with the emphasis on the music, and the groove. Two different things. "Country soul" is just some term some dude in England who doesn't know what he's talking about made up to confuse Americans. Dan Penn ought to know, and actually, he's not really that ornery at all. I went to his house and he showed me these cool thermal socks he was wearing and told me where to go get them. And yeah, I did talk to Dan a bit about Arthur--he loved Arthur and thought his story was tragic. I love him too, but it's not like I think Arthur was any kind of consummate artist or anything, just a guy who got too famous too fast and couldn't handle it.

I don't think, it should be in that first sentence.

The term certainly does mean something, it means country plus soul. And Arthur does sound quite a bit country for an R&B singer. If the objection to it is only that it was not a term used at the time and some outsider coined it, that's irrelevant.

A lot of those Arthur Alexander sides were cut in Nashville with Nashville cats like Floyd Cramer, Charlie McCoy and Kenny Buttrey and a lot of the Muscle Shoals cats like Donnie Fritts and Jerry Carrigan migrated to Nashville- although Dan keep a painted-black studio with the requisite egg-carton paneling in Alabama- so you can either maintain that these people were adept at two different styles of music or realize that the two are more related than some might acknowledge. The danger in making this connection might be that it trivializes the accomplishments of Soul Music and the people who created it, therefore somebody like Dan Penn, with all due respect, is going to want to keep it separate from Country.

You know, like he wanted to be 100% sure that nobody confused him with Ira Louvin

Alabama Music Hall of Fame has no problem with the term: http://www.alamhof.org/arthuralexander.html

Country music is a barely musical form with emphasis on the words; soul music is a barely verbal form with the emphasis on the music, and the groove.

Seriously?

Kind of surprising to hear such a dismissive tone in your posts about the music, and the man, from somebody who clearly knows a lot and cares a lot about this stuff.

There some truth to what he is saying and I might have agreed with it years ago. I tend to think part of it is rhetorical exaggeration, like when he pretends to dislike the Beatles.

Come to think if it, maybe Arthur is collateral damage from that anti-Beatles stance

I have no problem with the idea of country soul or soul country, both genres shared musicians, studios, themes, backgrounds. I think the relationship between the two is far deeper than some dude in England calling it country soul. Joe Tex, Bobby Womack, Jimmy Lewis, William Bell, so many great soul artists cut soul sides flavored with country. That Freddie North record is great, but I wouldn't compared it to Arthur Alexander who had a wider ranged of sides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN0x180tG0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUt2noacmJ0

One thing that's impressive about Arthur is that there are songs like "In The Middle Of It All" that he recorded several times in his career and in many cases the later versions are as good if not better than the earlier ones

This has turned into a really interesting thread! I don't have time at work to get into the whole "country soul" debate, but it made me think of this, so I'll stick it here: Johnny Adams singing Conway Twitty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJXguMA_kyk&feature=related

Been intrigued by this country soul thing ever since I read that people like James Brown and Ray Charles saying that Little Jimmy Dickens was one of their favorite singers.

Dan Penn reared back and said, "NO, I DO NOT."

Have been listening to some of Arthur's individual tracks multiple times in a row. The thing about his understated style is that he really stays focused from the beginning to the end of a song- there is never a bump in the performance where it goes "OK, I laid back for a while, I set the scene, now I GOTTA SING!" Listening to him is like watching a film actor who really knows how to work with the camera, as opposed to a stage actor who is still emoting for the back rows.

Hoping ebbjunior is gonna come back soon. He is a pretty smart guy who usually says interesting things.

Wonder if he talked to Kris Kristofferson about Arthur. Whenever they came through Cleveland, Kris and Donnie Fritts would comp Arthur and his wife with front row seats and when Arthur died Kris sent a wreath with a card that said "See you at the end of the Rainbow Road, partner."

Got a hold of a copy of the book by the dude from England, will try to ascertain whether he knows what he is talking about.

What book is it?

Say It One Time for the Brokenhearted: Country Soul in the American South by Barney Hoskyns

Country music is a barely musical form with emphasis on the words; soul music is a barely verbal form with the emphasis on the music, and the groove.

I think Ebb Jr. is trying to be provocative here and using rhetorical exaggeration as noted above. I don't think Smokey Robinson or Curtis Mayfield or other soul songwriters or country songwriters would agree

I read that sentence a few times and even asked my girlfriend what it could mean. I still have no idea what that was supposed to me. Country music doesn't have a groove? Quiet storm is all about language. Anyway I really want to read that book.

Little writeup about him here. I knew the song Anna, but hadn't investigated him before. Lovely recording.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/11/arthur_alexander_and_the_beatles_forgotten_songwriter_also_inspired_the.html

Writer/author Holly-George Warren's Muscle Shoals presentation at the EMP Pop Conference in New Orleans focussed on Arthur. Fascinating stuff from the details she gave about Arthur's life to the mention about how John Lennon loved his voice and songs.

Country music is a barely musical form with emphasis on the words

this might rate as one of the top ten stupidest things ever posted to ILM

Some tough competition.

I just enjoyed listening to Bee Gees cover of "Everyday I Have To Cry," which I had not known existed. Now onto The McCoys version.

julie grant's "everyday i have to cry" is definitive for my money.

Country music is a barely musical form with emphasis on the words; soul music is a barely verbal form with the emphasis on the music, and the groove.

still the worst.

An overview from the guy who wrote the excellent biography of Arthur : http://www.richardyounger.com/arthur-alexander.php

― Another Muzak from a Diffident Lichen (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, June 9, 2011 3:08 PM (five years ago)

Which links to a very interesting interview about how he came to write the book

Which I meant to link. Here: http://www.allbutforgottenoldies.net/interviews/richard-younger/index.html

Even more versions of "Every Day I Have To Cry" floating around: Ike and Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield, Rick Nelson, to name three. Guess first recorded version was Steve Alaimo. Arthur himself didn't record it until 1975.

I forgot to mention Bon Scott.

somehow i'd never heard "anna" before, the original version. it's incredible! already thinking this might be one of my favorite vocal performances of all time.

This first step in the comeback version is pretty great too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSTQ7HiN2TY

Good version of “Anna” sung by Roger McGuinn on the tribute album Adios Amigo. Whole thing is reasonably high quality.

I got the Ace compilation Greatest again last year to replace my old copy. Different (purposely updated) artwork but otherwise still the same exact CD and liner notes used over 30 years ago and it still holds up as the best place to hear his classic recordings.

I am an huge fan of the final record. He was still singing so great up until the end. The newer versions of older material are usually just as good and in some cases better.

The tribute album has "I Love You So" credited to Felix Cavaliere and Veronica. Unless some evil alchemist has untransmuted James Redd's Golden Ear, it's pretty clear that Veronica=Ronnie Spector.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50w_FErFdfY