Arthur Alexander
Lonely Just Like Me: The Final Chapter (Hacktone)His songs have been covered by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, but Arthur Alexander remains obscure to all except the most dedicated fans of soul music. By 1993, he had retired from the music business and was driving a bus in Cleveland when Elektra Records persuaded him to record an album for its American Explorer series. The result, Lonely Just Like Me, was greeted with high praise, but just weeks after its release, he died of a heart attack at the age of 51. The Final Chapter expands on the original in a unique way, remastering and resequencing the dozen songs from the album to conform to the initial intentions of Alexander and producer Ben Vaughn. It also contains Alexander’s appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air, four demos recorded in a Cleveland hotel room while Alexander and Vaughn were working out material for the recording sessions, and a version of his 1962 hit, “Anna,” live at New York City’s Bottom Line in 1991 that prompted Elektra to give him a new record deal. Country soul infused with emotional sincerity and timeless melodies rarely matches this modern Final Chapter.
This article appears in December 14 • 2007.