1960s soul brother Arthur Conley has died

[NightTrain]

1960s soul singer Arthur Conley dies at 57

DATELINE: AMSTERDAM, Netherlands

AP

Arthur Conley, a 1960s soul singer and protege of Otis Redding, died Monday at his home in the Netherlands, a friend said. He was 57.

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

He died in his home in Ruurlo, in the eastern Netherlands, where he had lived for several decades after fleeing the pressure of the U.S. music industry.

Conley was born in Atlanta, Georgia, 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. He 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, Giesen said.

In the Netherlands, he 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.