Song of the Day 9/15: Arthur Conley, “Sweet Soul Music”

If you can listen to this song without getting excited, you might want to find a nurse to check you for a pulse.

Arthur Conley’s was one of the most enigmatic stories in soul music. He was only 21 in 1967 and had released one single when he was discovered by Otis Redding, who signed him to his just-formed record label. Together they wrote “Sweet Soul Music,” which reached No. 2 on both Billboard’s Hot 100 and its R&B chart.

Actually, it was more a rewrite, of a Sam Cooke track called “Yeah Man,” released on his posthumous LP “Shake” in 1965. Cooke’s lyrics surveyed several dances of the day, but Conley and Redding’s version substituted a sock hop’s worth of hits and stars.

For people who aren’t fans of the music – yes, El Som, such people do exist – Conley first quotes the Miracles’ “Goin’ to a Go-Go,” then reels off a two-minute soul revue. Each verse spotlights a singer with a then-recent hit – Lou Rawls (“don’t he look boss, y’all”), Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Redding himself – before proclaiming James Brown “the king of them all.” Redding even borrowed the horn parts, the intro from “The Magnificent Seven,” the break from his own “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song),” right after Conley quotes the lyric.

Conley had one more crossover hit, “Funky Street,” which went to No. 17 in 1968, but he disappeared after the mid-70s, leaving the music business and the United States, first for London, then Brussels. By 1979 he had changed his name to Lee Roberts and was living in Amsterdam, where he met the man who became his life partner and people didn’t care about same-sex relationships.

He gave up on the industry, but not on music. He worked with a band of local musicians called the Sweaters, whose drummer recorded one of their gigs. This is the show in its entirety.

Roberts continued to perform infrequently in Europe, but was planning a comeback before he died of cancer in 2003 at age 57. A Dutch talk show recorded him performing the Sam Cooke song “Nothing Can Change the Love I Have for You” on piano the year before he died. His voice was still magic.

Bonus track: Sam Cooke’s “Yeah Man.”