ARTHUR CONLEY

Arthur Conley was a protégé of Otis Redding, with whom he co-wrote one of the biggest hits of 1967.

Conley was born in McIntosh, Georgia, on January 4, 1946, and grew up in Atlanta. By age twelve, he had joined the Evening Smiles, a gospel group who regularly appeared on radio station WAOK. By 1963, he had made the transition to Rhythm & Blues, leading his own group. Arthur & The Corvets made three singles--”Poor Girl,” “I Believe,” and “Flossie Mae”--for the Atlanta-based NRC (National Recording Company), but they did little upon release.

The following year, Conley disbanded the Corvets to pursue a solo career. In late 1964, his Deep Soul ballad, “I’m a Lonely Stranger,” came out on the Ru-Jac label. It caught the attention of Otis Redding, who was impressed enough to invite Conley to re-cut the song at the Stax studios in Memphis. Redding issued the new version of “Stranger” on his Jotis label in the fall of 1965, followed by “Who’s Foolin’ Who” in early 1966. After that, Redding discontinued the Jotis imprint. He advised Conley to sign with FAME Records in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, for his next single. Conley did so, but “I Can’t Stop (No, No, No)” did nothing upon its initial release. The same was true of the follow-up, “Take Me (Just As I Am).”

While jamming on a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Yeah Man,” Conley and Redding began to play with the song. The end result was “Sweet Soul Music,” a tribute to the genre’s biggest icons that name-checked James Brown, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Lou Rawls, and (at Conley’s insistence) Otis Redding himself. The single came out on Atco, which distributed FAME, hitting #2 both on the R&B and pop charts in the spring of 1967. Conley followed it with a commercially successful remake of Joe Turner’s 1954 blues shouter, “Shake, Rattle & Roll.” A third release, “Whole Lotta Woman,” missed the R&B chart and stalled at #73 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Conley was performing in Florida the night of December 10, 1967, when Otis Redding and several members of the Bar-Kays were killed in a plane crash. Without Redding to guide his career, Conley floundered for a time, but soon righted himself. In Memphis, he hooked up with veteran producer Tom Dowd. Their session at the American Recording Studios produced Conley’s second-biggest hit, “Funky Street,” along with “People Sure Act Funny,” “Run On,” and the Redding tribute, “Otis Sleep On.”

In the summer of 1968, Conley teamed up with four of his Atlantic/Atco labelmates—Solomon Burke, Don Covay, Ben E. King, and Joe Tex—for a one-off LP as the Soul Clan. It produced the single “Soul Meeting,” a minor hit, and the flip side, “That’s How It Feels,” an excellent ballad in the Deep Soul tradition. Conley then embarked on a month-long European tour. When he returned to the States, he and Dowd hooked back up for the session that produced “Aunt Dora’s Love Soul Shack,” his last chart single of 1968. It also inspired Norman Whitfield to write “Psychedelic Shack” for the Temptations.

By 1970, Atco Records and Arthur Conley had gone their separate ways. From 1971-74, he released only four singles, none of them very good. Conley moved to England in 1975, then relocated to Belgium and finally to the Netherlands in 1980. There, he had his name legally changed to Lee Roberts and became a successful businessman. His Art-Con Productions comprised nine different companies, including record labels, a publishing outfit, and a radio station.

After a lengthy battle with cancer, Arthur Conley, 57, died in the Netherlands on November 17, 2003.

Rock critic Dave Marsh included “Sweet Soul Music” in his 1989 book, The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.

Charted singles:

“Sweet Soul Music” (1967) R&B #2, Pop #2
“Shake, Rattle & Roll” (1967) R&B #20, Pop #31
“Whole Lotta Woman” (1967) Pop #73
“Funky Street” (1968) R&B #5, Pop #14
“People Sure Act Funny” R&B #17, Pop #58
“Soul Meeting” (as a member of the Soul Clan, 1968) R&B #34, Pop #91
“Aunt Dora’s Love Soul Shack” (1968) R&B #41, Pop #85
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” (1969) R&B #41, Pop #51
“Run On” (1969) Pop #115
“God Bless” (1970) R&B #33, Pop #107