Arthur Alexander scored one of the first national hits ("You Better Move On") out of the soul-music recording center Muscle Shoals, Alabama; penned many more classic songs ("Every Day I Have to Cry," the Beatles-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 Me finds 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