Most Popular
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Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Mescaline on the Mexican Border
Texas is the only state in the country where peyote is sold legally. Really.
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Little Bitty Burger Barn
"It's okay to be little bitty in the big city" is an apt slogan for this new burger joint, where sliders rule
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Ghost Town CFS: Carriage House Cafe
Step back in time — to a spooky old carriage barn with a monster chicken-fried steak
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Barack Obama and Me (246)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Save Lobo: A Siberian Husky Mix is Sentenced to Die (28)
Why? Because he's big and intimidating and because one family complained about him over and over again
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (13)
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (6)
All This Useless Beauty
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Rotten to the Corps: A Question of Justice at Texas A&M (140)
Thanks to A& M and a district attorney, two cadets escape punishment for beating in a student's face
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge?
All This Useless Beauty
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Tired of the Hype, But That's All There Is
Next month, Houston gets to be a cool kid. But only for a week.
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The improbable redemption of Ashlee Simpson
"La La" Love You
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Rap's Rapidly Vanishing Female MC
The Why Chromosome
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A New Official State Song for Texas?
A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song
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Geraldo Rivera Is Stupid: A Review of His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.
06:06AM 03/09/08 -
Weekend Music: Help Save the Houston Music Scene
03:54PM 03/07/08 -
To Do: Hockey and Roller Derby
04:12PM 03/07/08 -
Sausage Fest: Bangers and Mash at Red Lion Pub
11:40AM 03/08/08
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Recent Articles By William Michael Smith
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Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook Vols. 2 & 3
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Jimmy Raycraft Benefit
concert preview
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Terri Hendrix
concert preview
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I.J. Gosey’s Sunday Afternoon Blues Party
Check out one of the few remaining Duke-Peacock sessions players
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Shake Russell
The singer/songwriter still packs ‘em in
National Features
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SF Weekly
The Candidate
Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.
By Matt Smith -
The Pitch
How Not To Be a Rap Star
First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.
By Nadia Pflaum -
Village Voice
Project Runaway
What becomes a gossip columnist most?
By Michael Musto
Arthur Alexander
Lonely Just Like Me: The Final Chapter
By William Michael Smith
Published: September 6, 2007
It's impossible to listen to John Lennon without hearing a direct connection to Arthur Alexander — provided you know who that is. Consider pop music's Mount Rushmore: The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley. The Alabama-born singer, an early country-soul practitioner who died at age 53, is the only artist to have songs covered by this ultimate quartet; one listen to Lonely Just Like Me leaves no doubt of the man's direct influence on the first two. His hits — the heartrending "Anna," Ray Charles-like "You Better Move On" and Sam Cooke-ish "Every Day I Have to Cry" — are part of the canon of popular music. The Final Chapter is 18 tracks encompassing Alexander's Lonely Just Like Me album — produced by Ben Vaughan and released shortly before his death in 1993 — plus live material from an urbane but soulful NPR "Fresh Air" performance and interview, and a handful of hush-and-listen hotel-room demos that includes a version of Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man" that will stop you dead in your tracks. This is soul at its most primal and basic, a direct conduit to the Beatles and Stones.
