Arthur Conley dies

[brownie]

Sad news for fans of soul music.

From AP:

ARTHUR CONLEY

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) _ Arthur Conley, a 1960s soul singer and protege of Otis Redding, died Monday at his home in the town of Ruurlo, in the eastern Netherlands. He was 57.

Conley had been suffering from intestinal cancer and had grown progressively weak in recent weeks, said Gunter Giesen, the band leader of a group Conley was advising.

Conley was born in Atlanta and started his recording career in 1959 as leader of the group Arthur and the Corvets. He was best known for his 1967 hit, "Sweet Soul Music," which he co-wrote with Redding based on a number by Sam Cooke. Conley had several minor hits in the following two years.

He moved to Europe in the early 1970s after several tours of the continent, deciding that he was "fed up with the pressure" in the United States, said Giesen.

In the Netherlands, Conley appeared on television and radio, and ran an independent record label. In the last five years he was an adviser to The Original Sixties R&B and Soul Show, which sought to reproduce the sound and look of the heyday of soul.