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Arthur Alexander Jnr. was born on 10 May 1940 in Florence, Alabama some five miles from the Tennessee River which separates Florence from Sheffield and
Muscle Shoals. The rural community echoed to the sounds of down-home music. His mother and sister sang in church while his guitarist-father played gospel
songs using the neck of a whiskey bottle for a slide. On Saturday nights, Alexander Snr. played the blues in the hot, dusty juke-joints around Sheffield.
In the sixth grade Alexander Jnr. joined a gospel group, The Heartstrings: the other members were older and so, apart from local dates, they usually appeared
without him. On leaving high school, he worked as a bellhop in Sheffield's Holiday Inn. Everyone tells a different version of Arthur's first excursions into the
studio. He spoke of being introduced to Tom Stafford, a Sheffield lyricist, by a friend: Rick Hall thought Alexander's mother worked for Stafford's family as a
maid. Arthur supplied melodies to Stafford's lyrics and the pair worked from a room above a Florence drugstore owned by Stafford's father. Donnie Fritts who
thought Stafford had auditioned the Heartstrings and picked out Arthur - played guitar and piano on the demos. Rick Hall used the same premises as an office: he
and Billy Sherrill, members of a rock 'n' roll combo, The Fairlanes, dispensed advice and wisdom.
In 1958, Alexander and Henry Lee Bennett wrote "She Wanna Rock" which Stafford and Hall published under the now renowned banner of Fame, an acronym
for Florence Alabama Music Enterprises. Stafford took the song to Decca in Nashville where it was recorded by the Manitoba-based C & W singer, Amie
Derksen in April 1959 (it was released here on MCA's 'Rare Rockabilly' series in 1977). The following yea r, Stafford and Alexander r wrote " Sally Sue
Brown" which he recorded on a two track machine in Stafford's studio. On this occasion Stafford took the tape to Memphis where Judd Phillips released it under
the name of June Alexander: Arthur was known to all as June, short for Junior.
The Judd record, a lowdown blues as gutbucket as Arthur would get, fired everyones enthusiasm. Rick Hall bought a tobacco warehouse in Muscle Shoals,
lined the walls with egg crates and installed a four-track recorder. It was he re, in the summer of 1961, that Alexander recorded 'You Better Move On'. The
repercussions were enormous. Apart from being the finest record to come out of an admitted less than enthralling year, it featured the first of the piney woods'
black singer/country band combinations which dominated the hey-day of late Sixties soul. The band, known as Dan Penn and the Pallbearers, (they traveled in a
hearse), contained David Briggs (piano), Jerry Carrigan (drums) and 18 year-old Norbert Putnam (bass). According to Putnam, ‘You Better Move On' was their
first session for Rick Hall. Donnie Fritts and Dan Penn also point to the presence of Forrest Riley and Terry Thompson, who wrote the flip side 'A Shot Of
Rhythm And Blues. "Our entire orientation was R&B" said Putnam later," we were strictly young kids who loved soul music". These pickers, Alabama boys
barely out of high school, became the nucleus of the most prestigious and sought-after session men in Nashville. moreover, their legacy, that distinctive Southern
rhythm section of clipped guitar, sparse bass and drums all recorded open-miked with the amplifiers low, would help to make Muscle Shoals the soul capital of
the world.
Rick Hall dubbed backing vocals onto 'You Better Move On' and took the tape to Nashville where it was rejected by almost every A&R man including Chet
Atkins at RCA-Victor. Finally, he ran into Noel Ball, local disc-jockey and Nashville representative for Dot Records. Ball, once a member of the Crescendos,
signed a tape-lease deal and subsequently produced Arthur himself." I got 2%" Hall recalled in 1973." Because of my lack of knowledge about contracts I never
got to produce another side with Arthur. That act was stolen from me. Nonetheless 'You Better Move On' was a hit (No 24 in 1962) and Hall's 2% amounted to
$10,000 which helped him launch a new studio where he eventually recorded some two dozen million-sellers including Aretha Franklin's first major hit.
In Ball's hands, Alexander's recordings took a more commercial turn which paid off when the follow-up 'Where Have You Been', a Barry Mann-Cynthia Well
song, reached the top 60. 'Anna', Alexander's own composition, provided a third Hot 100 entry and his only Top 10 R&B hit ‘Go Home Girl', his most
compassionate song, merely peaked at No 102 in January 1963, the year in which most of his royalties came from Steve Alaimo's hit version of another
Alexander composition 'Every Day I Have To Cry'. Few people heard such an equally rewarding song as his fine interpretation of C&W favorite like 'Detroit
City'.
In April 1966, Alexander came to Britain where his tour took in appearances at the Ram-Jam Club and the Flamingo. A tall, awkward figure with slightly Oriental
features, he stood onstage for 30 minutes, sang ‘lf I Had A Hammer', looked at his watch and marched off in mid-song. A Marquee appearance was, if anything,
less charismatic. He sang'(Baby) For You', his first record under a new contract with Sound Stage 7; the audience, however, had come to see the Action, and
reserved their applause for the lead singer's pink trousers.
Although Monument's Sound Stage 7 persevered for 4 years, Arthur was not equipped to handle success. We don't know why, as neither he, nor his associates
have ever talked directly about his problems, although Alexander has referred to a lengthy illness which seriously affected the quality of his work. Apart from an
unissued session for ABC-Dunhill, he disappeared until 1972 when he went to Memphis to record an album for Warner Bros.
A return to Muscle Shoals brought forth a pop hit on Buddah with 'Every Day I Have To Cry Some' (No 45 in 1975) but the renaissance was short-lived. He
appeared on Music Mill with a tribute to Elvis in 1977 and shared a Koala album with Carl Perkins in 1979.
As Alexander began a comeback in 1993, he died of a heart attack.
