November 17, 2003 – Arthur Conley was born on January 4, 1946 in McIntosh County, Georgia and grew up in Atlanta. He first recorded as a 13 year old in 1959 as the lead singer of Arthur & the Corvets. With this group, he released three singles in 1963 and 1964, “Poor Girl”, “I Believe”, and “Flossie Mae”.
In 1964, he moved to a new label and released “I’m a Lonely Stranger”. When Otis Redding heard this, he asked Conley to record a new version, which was released on Redding’s own fledgling label Jotis Records, as only its second release. That was in 1967. Together they rewrote the Sam Cooke song “Yeah Man” into “Sweet Soul Music”, which, at Redding’s insistence, was released on the Atco-distributed label Fame Records, and was recorded at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It proved to be a massive hit, as it shot to the number two spot on both the pop and R&B charts in the USA and Western Europe, earning Conley the number eleven male artist ranking for 1967. The song paid homage to other soul singers like Lou Rawls, Wilson Pickett and James Brown.
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