Honky Dalton Conley

Dalton Reed's Louisiana Soul Man establishes the singer as an heir to the deep Southern soul of such artists as Otis Redding, Arthur Conley, and Percy Sledge. Despite the title, there's no hint of cajun music or zydeco on the record it's pure testifiying from start to finish. The new material is usually quite good, and it should be with songwriters like Doc Pomus, Dr. John, Dan Penn, and Delbert McClinton involved. Louisiana Soul Man is for anyone who believed that pure Southern soul died with Otis Redding.

Eli Conley's third album Searching for What's True explores themes of uncertainty, ache, and loss, yet light shines through the clouds again and again. The songs are drawn from the concrete and immediate details of daily life: a stuffed animal clutched in a child's arms, a colorful sunset after a forest fire, a statue of a Confederate general toppling to the ground.

Arthur Conley sang and (with mentor Otis Redding) co-wrote the 1967 classic "Sweet Soul Music," arguably the finest record ever made about the genre it celebrates. Conley was just 12 years old when he joined the Evening Smiles, a gospel group that appeared regularly on local radio station WAOK. By 1963 he was leading his own R&B outfit, Arthur & the Corvets, which over the next two years issued three singles "Poor Girl," "I Believe," and "Flossie Mae" for the Atlanta label National Recording Company. Despite Conley's graceful yet powerful vocals (which owed an immense debt to his idol, Sam Cooke), the NRC singles earned little attention, and he dissolved the group to mount a solo career, releasing "I'm a Lonely Stranger" on the Ru-Jac label in late 1964.