Lonely Just Like Me
Arthur Alexander scored one of the first national hits ("You Better Move On") out of the soul-music recording centerMuscle Shoals, Alabama; penned many more classic songs ("Every Day I Have to Cry," theBeatles-covered "Anna [Go to Him]"); and quit the business in the mid-'70s to drive a community-center bus for 15 years. He made a comeback with this deeply moving country-soul album in 1993, but died suddenly less than three months after its release. An astounding last testament,Lonely Just Like Mefinds Alexander's lovely, plainspoken vocal and writing style in a mood somewhere between fatalistic and generous. (A hopeful love song, "There Is a Road," and one Christian avowal, "I Believe in Miracles," end the disc on a happy note.) Alexander's revival of his own "Mr. John," the first-person monologue of a Vietnam vet's return to the home of a dead buddy's ex-girlfriend, is the standout among standouts. It climaxes with these astonishing lines: "The brother was a good man / That's what the colonel said / But a good man ain't no good / With a bullet wound in his head."--Rickey Wright