Richard Younger - A Shot Of Rhythm & Blues: The Arthur Alexander Story

Arthur Alexander is a long time favourite of the Primer and as far as I can tell this is the first attempt to analyse at length the life and work of a complex and incredibly talented individual.

Younger illustrates the highs, lows and inconsistencies of the man and his music and, in telling the story of this great country-soul writer and performer, he also provides the reader with the wider context; the detail of the Muscle Shoals music scene is unsurpassed, Alexander's music is well placed in the social and cultural history of the American South and, most of all, we get to read about (if not always understand) the nature and complexity of the man himself.

First and foremost, Alexander's music finally gets its due. Always an artist whose influence was out of all proportion to his somewhat limited commercial success, those who have previously made only a nodding acquaintance with Arthur's music will probably be astonished by the reverence in which he is held by the Stones, the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the countless others who have recorded his songs over the years.

What made Alexander's music so compelling was its simplicity, coupled with its mournful intensity and its early marriage of R&B and country. What Younger illustrates so strongly, and what moves the reader throughout the book, is the clear relationship between the intensity and sadness of much of Arthur's music, the road he travelled and the life he lived. Troubled throughout his life with mental illness, badly advised on occasions, the loss of publishing rights to much of his best material, his own waywardness when on the verge of real long term success, his somewhat contradictory relationships with those he loved - these and other threads of his life are brought together by the author to illustrate what is, in the end, a sad and unfulfilled story highlighted by brief periods of happiness and a lasting legacy of wonderful songs and recordings.

Most of the contributors to the book (friends, colleagues, relatives, musicians etc.) speak lovingly of a gentle but wayward individual. No-one really has an unkind word to say about the man and yet it is clear that any number of them, personally or professionally, were frustrated and concerned by the man Alexander became. One of the most interesting elements of the story was the contradiction between Alexander's undeniable need for love and companionship and his clear inability to stay true those who provided him with the affection he so desperately needed; and yet the songs he penned often turned the relationships of the real world on their head, with Alexander at the mercy of another's waywardness or longing, illustrating what appears to be a deep seated insecurity that stayed with him all his life.

I'm not sure that Younger's book can fully explain the life and times of Arthur Alexander - too much of what happened is remembered differently by those who were there, too much is still left unsaid; nor can Arthur be seen solely as the innocent party caught up in a set of circumstances completely outside his control. He had his part to play as well. But this is a book that tells us a great deal about who Alexander was and where his wonderful music came from; we should all be grateful for that alone. That Younger also manages to set the whole sad but still strangely uplifting story into the wider context is clearly a bonus - it is for these reasons that this is the one book about a specific R&B artist (as opposed to those about the genre itself) that the Primer would recommend as essential reading to those with even a passing interest in the life of a truly great and undervalued talent and its social and cultural context.