Clarence Carter - 1992 Have You Met Clarence Carter...Yet?

Clarence Carter - The Fame Singles, Volume 2 1970-73

 Have you ever seen a self professed 'fat old white guy' with a big grey beard look like a 5 year old on Christmas? That was Cliff when Kent finally came up with volume 2 of the Clarence Carter singles. I had listened to tales of Carter's version of Sixty Minute Man more than once in the previous year and it was guaranteed to be on this set (it is). Not every volume 2 is worthy as we all know, but this one stands up to the high standards established by volume 1. "The second volume of Clarence Carter’s Fame singles opens with his biggest worldwide hit. A cover of a Chairman Of The Board album track, ‘Patches’ is a song that could be considered a corny attempt to capture the heartstrings. In fact Clarence initially refused to record it. He regarded a song about rural poverty as a slight upon his people, while producer Rick Hall thought it could apply equally to black and white Americans. Hall won, and the record climbed into the Top 10 of the pop charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first part of this compilation sees the search for another hit of similar magnitude lead Clarence further away from his black southern audience. Over the previous four years he had progressed from a promising newcomer with gritty masterpieces such as ‘Tell Daddy’ and ‘Looking For A Fox’ to a million-selling hit-maker with ‘Slip Away’ and ‘Too Weak To Fight’, all cut for Fame and released on Atlantic Records. A string of Top 10 R&B hits made him one ofAtlantic’s most successful soul artists.

After ‘Patches’, his next couple of singles looked to replicate the story-telling framework. ‘It’s All In Your Mind’ and ‘The Court Room’ were nothing short of excellent, but the public didn’t take to them. With Fame’s relationship with Atlantic not as warm as it had been, Clarence’s singles started to under-perform, to the point where his duet with his wife Candi Staton didn’t even chart. His records were subsequently released on Fame via their new deal with United Artists and began to reappear in the higher reaches of the R&B chart.

This CD features the A and B-sides of the 11 singles scheduled for release by Clarence until the end of 1973, including many tracks that have never been reissued on CD before. It is a fantastic selection of classic southern soul, highlighting one of the greatest talents and biggest stars to have recorded for Rick Hall’s venerated Fame label."

By Dean Rudland

Clarence Carter - The Early Fame Singles 1966-70

Now you may ask yourself 'why is he re-posting this?' - Well for two reasons: A) This one is in FLAC with cover scans (finally got around to it) and B) It is a prelude because my friends Volume 2 has finally been released! Oooo Yeah!

"Born in Montgomery, Alabama on January 14, 1936, Carter attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, Alabama, and Alabama State College in Montgomery, graduating in August 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in music. His professional music career began with friend Calvin Scott, signing to the Fairlane Records label to release "I Wanna Dance But I Don't Know How" the following year. After the 1962 release of "I Don't Know (School Girl)," Carter and Scott left Fairlane Records for Duke Records, renaming themselves the CL Boys for their label debut, Hey. In all, the duo cut four Duke singles, none of them generating more than a shrug at radio.

In 1965, they traveled to Rick Hall's FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals to record "Step by Step" and its flip side, "Rooster Knees and Rice." Atlantic Records took notice and released "Step by Step" on its Atco Records subsidiary, but it flopped. Carter continued as a solo act, signing to the Fame Records label for 1967's Tell Daddy. Several more solid singles followed, until Carter released "Slip Away," which hit number 6 on the Pop Charts. "Too Weak to Fight" hit number 13. Several more soul singles followed, like "Snatching It Back," "Making Love (At the Dark End of the Street)", "The Feeling Is Right," "Doing Our Thing" and "Patches." "Patches" (first recorded by Chairmen of the Board) was a UK number 2 and a U.S. number 4 in 1970, and won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1971. This disc sold over one million copies, and received a gold disc awarded by the R.I.A.A. in September 1970, just two months after its release. Following "Slip Away" and "Too Weak to Fight", it was Carter's third million-seller.

With the advent of disco in the mid 1970s, Carter's career suffered, before he found a new audience with songs such as "Strokin'" and "Dr. C.C." in the 1980s and 1990s, which appealed (and still appeal) to a primarily African-American working-class audience that was also interested in contemporary blues and soul artists such as Denise LaSalle, Bobby Rush, Marvin Sease and Sir Charles Jones. "Strokin'" was given great acclaim when it was used in the Eddie Murphy film The Nutty Professor. Carter's strong soul sound also found an audience within the then-nascent hip-hop community. Most notably, the horn break from Carter's song "Back Door Santa", is sampled in the Run-D.M.C. Christmas song "Christmas in Hollis"

Clarence Carter - All Y'all Feeling All Right

Clarence Carter
"All Y'all Feeling All Right?" (Cee Gee Ent. 2003)

1. Good Time Tonight, A
2. Let's Do It, Before We Get Sleepy
3. Do It to Me Again
4. I Like Your Touch
5. Let It All Hang Out
6. Open the Door to Your Heart
7. She Got Me Pumping
8. Somebody's Coming
9. Did I Do the Right Thing
10. Put Up or Shut Up

There are still some good ole' Southern Soul Warriors out there; Otis Clay, Latimore, Barbara Carr, Johnny Rawls, Roy Roberts, and...oh yeah, Clarence Carter. Now maybe this doesn't exactly qualify as a current album, but at only 10 years old it is pretty new for us here.

Carter has really found a nice blend of old and new to make this thang both fresh and old school at the same time. If you check it on a google search you will see that this album made barely a ripple when released, REALLY!!?? This is quality music my friends.

Personnel: Clarence Carter (guitar, keyboards); Larry Byrom (guitar); Ken Watters (trumpet); Bill Huber (trombone); Clayton Ivey (keyboards); Owen Hale (drums); Cindy Walker, Carla Russell, Doug Stokes (background vocals)

The FAME Studios Story 1961 - 1973: Home Of The Muscle Schoals Sound

This 3 disc comp is nothing short of excellent.  The story of FAME is told through the music - from the pop side all the way to the gut bucket r&b side.

A wide range of artists worked with this legendary outfit, but one thing ties them all together... success!!

I'm sure you guys already have alot of these tracks but they made a huge effort to include some rarities;  undoubtedly for the collector types.

Enjoy!!!

Certain studios and labels occupy almost mythical stature in American musical history and FAME Studios, home of the Muscle Shoals sound, is among the elite. During the '60s and into the early '70s, the rotating crew at FAME Studios cranked out single after single, building a legacy that rivals such '60s stalwarts as Motown, Stax/Volt, and Chess, yet despite being the point of origin for such timeless 45s as Wilson Pickett's "Land of 1000 Dances," Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On," Joe Tex's "Hold What You've Got," Etta James' "Tell Mama," Clarence Carter's "Patches," James & Bobby Purify's "I'm Your Puppet," and Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," the label and studio aren't as well known as their peers. Ace's peerless three-disc box The FAME Studios Story: 1961-1973 should go a long way in firming up the label and studio's reputation in the eyes of the mass public. Anchored on those big hits, the compilation tells the story of FAME in exhaustive yet exciting detail, digging up a wealth of rarities (ranging from an unedited acoustic version of "You Left the Water Running" by Otis Redding and a version of "Another Man's Woman, Another Woman's Man" whose singer is unknown to a bunch of singles that rarely pop up on reissues), but this is hardly something for crate-diggers. This is a big, bold set filled with surprises for even seasoned record collectors and much of that has to do with context. Expertly compiled by Alec Palao, Tony Rounce, and Dean Rudland, The FAME Studios Story doesn't shy away from the moments when the Muscle Shoals sound seeped into the mainstream: very early in the set, teen idol Tommy Roe pops up with "Everybody" and toward the end the Osmonds come in with their Jackson 5 knockoff "One Bad Apple" and the revelation is how the FAME musicians gave these teenybopper stars some real swing and funk. That turns out to be the key to the FAME sound -- while Stax/Volt always had grit on the soles of their shoes, FAME was a little lighter, able to ease into slicker crossover material, something that served them well whenever they cranked out some bubblegum or backed Bobbie Gentry or, especially, when they cut effervescent pop-soul/Northern soul singles by Spooner & the Spoons ("Wish You Didn't Have to Go") and David & the Giants ("Ten Miles High"). Which isn't to say FAME didn't get down and dirty (of course they did -- witness Wicked Wilson Pickett's "Hey Jude," complete with guitar from Duane Allman), but they were versatile, adapting to the needs of either the performer or the song. And that very versatility may be part of the reason why FAME isn't as immediately recognizable a name as Motown or Stax -- the Muscle Shoals crew could cop both of those sounds, after all -- but it's also the reason why this set is such a wildly entertaining listen, in addition to being a historically necessary document housed in a very handsome hardcover book.

- Stephen Thomas Erlewine/AMG

Clarence Carter - I Found What I Wanted Unissued and Rare Fame Masters (2012)

Clarence Carter - I Found What I Wanted Unissued and Rare Fame Masters (2012)

For those of you who think I will be coming back with the second half of Carter's Fame singles any time soon: Ummm...News Flash, they have not been issued yet. I DO, however, have a little lagniappe post of four rare tracks that may or may not be on that set when it is eventually issued but I suspect this modern EP is Kent's way of priming folks for Volume Two.

I don't guess I need to say much here; it's CC and you almost certainly do not have it. I can't say that any of the four is an overlooked hit but none of them suck either. I've come to believe you are supposed to read the title to mean some tracks are unreleased and some are just rare since track 3 was clearly sourced from a 45 and I'd guess that track four was the b side.