CLARENCE CARTER

Clarence Carter is both an artist steeped in the most traditional aspects of Southern music and one of the most modern of all deep bluesmen. -- Dave Marsh

He was born blind in Montgomery, Alabama, on January 14, 1936. When he was nine, his grandmother gave him a guitar for Christmas. Carter attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Tallageda and Alabama State College in Montgomery. He graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in music.

He began singing professionally with his friend Calvin Scott as Clarence & Calvin. Their first single, on Fairlane Records, was 1961’s “I Wanna Dance But I Don’t Know How.” On the Duke label, they called themselves the C&C Boys. Duke put out four singles on the pair, but none were commercially successful. In 1965, as Clarence & Calvin, they self-financed a session at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It produced their final single, “Step by Step,” which they leased to Atco, an Atlantic subsidiary.

Scott left the act after being seriously injured in a 1966 car accident. (An alternate version of events is that Scott was forced to retire from music when his wife shot him.) Carter went solo and continued to record at FAME (but no longer had to self-finance his sessions). In 1967, he made the Billboard Rhythm & Blues chart for the first time with the self-written “Tell Daddy.” (Later that year, Etta James cut the song as “Tell Mama.”) At the suggestion of Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler, Carter’s singles started coming out on that label, which distributed FAME.

His first Atlantic single, “Slip Away,” was intended as the B-side. According to FAME’s Rick Hall, “We had to think ‘Funky Fever’ was a hit. We worked and worked and worked with that. I was sure it was a hit and sure enough, Atlantic ordered 10,000 singles the first week.” As for “Slip Away,” Hall said, “I think it took fifteen minutes [to record that song]!” Nevertheless, it was the single’s hit side, going to #2 R&B and #6 pop. It also earned a Gold Record.

Carter followed his big hit with the similar-sounding “Too Weak to Fight.” Clearly, the public was hungry for more as the song reached #3 R&B and #13 pop toward the end of 1968. And, like its predecessor, it was certified Gold. At the same time, Carter hit #4 on Billboard’s Christmas chart with “Back Door Santa.” The year 1969 was a good one for Carter, who placed four singles in the Billboard R&B top ten. And he entered the ‘70s in grand style with what became his signature song.

Atlantic’s Jerry Greenberg had sent Rick Hall a copy of “Patches,” a 1969 album track by the Chairmen of the Board. Hall loved the song and thought it was perfect for Carter, who nonetheless refused to record it. As Carter explained to Hall, “It’s a put-down to Black people and I’d never do that song.” However, Carter later had a change of heart. Despite (or perhaps due to) its corniness, “Patches” became Carter’s biggest hit, peaking at #2 R&B and #4 pop in the spring of 1970. It also received a Gold Record and won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.

Also in 1970, Carter married soul singer Candi Staton. They had a son, Clarence Carter, Jr., and divorced in 1973.

Carter left Atlantic in late 1971 and returned to FAME. In 1975, he signed with ABC, who released three albums on the man. While his career faltered in the disco era, Carter found renewed popularity on Ichiban Records in the ‘80s and ‘90s with songs like “Strokin’” and “Dr. C.C.” “Strokin’” would turn up in two movies: The Nutty Professor with Eddie Murphy, and William Friedkin’s Killer Joe. Carter’s music also found an audience in the hip-hop community. Most notably, Run-D.M.C. sampled the horn break from “Back Door Santa” on “Christmas in Hollis.”

Rock critic Dave Marsh included four of Carter’s songs--”Slip Away,” “Making Love (At the Dark End of the Street),” “Patches,” and “Sixty Minute Man”--in his 1989 book, The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.

Charted singles:

“Tell Daddy” (1967) R&B #35
“Thread the Needle” (1967) R&B #38, Pop #98
“Looking for a Fox” (1968) R&B #20, Pop #62
“Slip Away” (1968) R&B #2, Pop #6
“Funky Fever” (1968) R&B #49, Pop #88
“Too Weak to Fight” (1968-69) R&B #3, Pop #13
“Snatching It Back” (1969) R&B #4, Pop #31
“The Feeling Is Right” (1969) R&B #9, Pop #65
“Doin’ Our Thing” (1969) R&B #9, Pop #46
“Take If Off Him and Put It on Me” (1970) R&B #23, Pop #94
“I Can’t Leave Your Love Alone” (1970) R&B #6, Pop #42
“Patches” (1970) R&B #2, Pop #4
“It’s All in Your Mind” (1970) R&B #13, Pop #51
“The Court Room” (1971) R&B #12, Pop #61
“Slipped, Tripped, and Fell in Love” (1971) R&B #25, Pop #84
“Scratch My Back (And Mumble on My Year” (1971) R&B #41
“Back in Your Arms” (1972) R&B #46
“Put on Your Shoes and Walk” (1972) R&B #40, Pop #112
“Sixty Minute Man” (1973) R&B #17, Pop #65
“Mother-in-Law” (1973) R&B #24, Pop #80
“I’m the Midnight Special” (1973) R&B #15, Pop #101
“I Got Caught” (1975) R&B #49
“It’s a Monster Thang” (1981) R&B #81

Other notable recordings by Clarence Carter include “Step by Step” (Clarence & Calvin, 1965), “She Ain’t Gonna Do Right” (1967), “Back Door Santa” (1968), “Making Love (At the Dark End of the Street)” (1969), “I Smell a Rat” (1969), “Getting the Bills (But No Merchandise” (1971), and “Strokin’” (1984).