The Story Behind “Sweet Soul Music”

Arthur Conley born January 4th 1945,  started out  singing gospel,  later formed his own group and  recorded a few singles that went nowhere. Eventually he went solo. His  efforts paid off with  "I'm a Lonely Stranger", recorded on a tiny label. The labels owner passed the song on to Otis Redding who suggested Arthur re-cut the song for his own record label. Although the song (and several follow ups) were not successful, Arthur and Otis became not only friends, but "working partners".

One evening while looking for new material for Arthur, they stumbled upon a Sam Cook recording titled "Yeah Man". Rewriting and fine tuning  the song, they eventually recorded it, renaming it "Sweet Soul Music. (you can hear the  singers shouting "yeah man" in the background if you listen carefully )

From their fist meeting, Otis Redding had mentored Arthur, directed his career, and ran defense for him with various label execs. That all came to an end when Otis died in a plane crash. With no one to direct his career, Arthur tried in vain to recapture  success and, while his recording career did have a brief resurgence, it failed miserably in comparison to that of Sweet Soul Music. Arthur eventually relocated to England and next to  the Netherlands, where he died of cancer in 2003.