Clarence Carter embodied the raw, grounded essence of Muscle Shoals R&B, blending the searing emotional depth of blues with a sharp, playful sensuality that produced profoundly soulful recordings anchored in the American South across eras. Born on January 14, 1936, in Montgomery, Alabama, Carter entered the world without sight. Music drew him in early, as he mastered guitar through repeated listens to blues recordings by John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Jimmy Reed. At Alabama State University he concentrated in music, acquiring the skill to render charts and arrangements in Braille.
In 1960 Carter teamed with fellow blind student Calvin Scott to establish the duo Clarence & Calvin, which issued “I Wanna Dance But I Don’t Know How” on the Fairlane label the next year. Following the 1962 appearance of “I Don’t Know (School Girl),” the pair moved to the Duke roster and appeared as the C & C Boys on their first Duke single, “Hey Marvin.” The duo ultimately recorded four Duke sides, none of which attracted significant radio response. In 1965 they made their way to Rick Hall’s Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where they spent $85 to cut the emotionally intense ballad “Step by Step” backed with “Rooster Knees and Rice.” Atlanta broadcaster Zenas Sears steered Clarence & Calvin toward Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler, resulting in an Atco release of “Step by Step”; when the record failed to chart, the duo again found itself without a label.
Accompanied by a four-piece group known as the Mello Men, Clarence & Calvin headlined Birmingham’s 2728 Club through the first half of 1966. One Friday night in June, an automobile collision on the way home from the venue left Scott severely hurt and triggered a bitter dispute between the two men over medical costs. Carter persisted as a solo performer, joining Hall’s Fame label for the 1967 single “Tell Daddy,” which prompted Etta James to record the answering song “Tell Mama.” The strong mid-tempo soul track “Thread the Needle” achieved modest crossover success, and after one more Fame outing, “The Road of Love,” Carter rejoined Atlantic with “Looking for a Fox,” released early in 1968. That single introduced a series of recordings that lightly alluded to his lack of sight while highlighting the erotic themes central to many of his best-known works.
Few tracks captured the emerging Carter style more fully than “Slip Away,” an outstanding infidelity ballad that placed his anguished, powerful baritone against the sinuous support of Fame’s renowned studio musicians. The song reached the Top Ten, and its successor, “Too Weak to Fight,” also attained gold status, confirming Carter’s commercial viability. He closed 1968 with the richly rhythmic Christmas release “Back Door Santa” and launched a national tour that featured backing vocalist Candi Staton, who would later marry Carter and achieve her own prominence as a soul artist.
The driving “Snatching It Back” opened Carter’s Atlantic output for 1969; its B-side, a reinterpretation of James Carr’s deep-soul classic “The Dark End of the Street,” stands among his strongest performances, drawing on blues and gospel traditions to examine the contradictions of unfaithfulness. Later singles such as “The Feeling Is Right,” “Doing Our Thing,” and “Take It Off Him and Put It on Me” enjoyed only limited traction, yet in 1970 Carter returned to the Top Ten with the heartfelt “Patches,” his most successful record to that point. Another sequence of 1971 releases, including “Getting the Bills” and “Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love,” met with little response, and after the duet “If You Can’t Beat ’Em” with Staton, Carter departed Atlantic in 1972 for a return to Fame on “Back in Your Arms Again.”
The suggestive “Sixty Minute Man,” issued in 1973, became an unexpected hit, but two years later Carter attempted to revive his career on ABC with “Take It All Off” and “Dear Abby,” both of which passed unnoticed. By decade’s end he had moved to small independents such as Future Stars and Ronn; in 1980 he joined Venture for the misguided “Jimmy’s Disco” and “Can We Slip Away Again?” Reappearing on the new Ichiban imprint in 1985, Carter reclaimed the ribald, roots-oriented soul of his peak period. The album Dr. C.C. received favorable notices and yielded the comically explicit “Strokin’,” which spread widely by word of mouth; a follow-up, “Still Strokin’,” appeared in 1989. Carter maintained an active schedule of recording and touring well into the twenty-first century, retaining a loyal audience across the South.
