Clarence Carter (born January 14, 1936) – What Was I Suppose To Do (1977)
An amazingly orchestrated, epic tale of jealousy and disrespect with a hypnotic groove, and arguably the most unique record Carter ever released.
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Clarence Carter’s Southern soul was a staple of early 70s R&B, with twenty of his singles charting from 1967-73.
Clarence George Carter was born blind in Montgomery, Alabama. He began learning to play the guitar at age 9, and graduated from Alabama State University with a degree in music in 1960.
He and his college friend Calvin Scott, also blind, formed a duo. Billing themselves as Clarence & Calvin, shortened to the C & C Boys in 1962, they released four singles on Duke Records without success. In 1965 they recorded “Step By Step” at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL, which was released on ATCO Records. It also failed to take off.
Scott was seriously injured in a car accident in 1966, and Carter continued as a solo artist. His single “Tell Daddy” was released on the Fame label in 1967 and was the break he had been waiting for, a regional hit that made it to #35 on the national R&B charts. It inspired an answer record by Etta James, “Tell Mama,” for which Carter received a songwriter credit.
The following year in 1968, he released “Slip Away,” which went to #2 R&B and #6 pop. From then until 1973, all twenty of the singles he recorded made the R&B charts, including six top-10 hits. Almost all of them also crossed over to Billboard’s pop charts. Carter’s songs were always funky and usually packed with innuendos and double entendres about temptation and sex.
His only record during this period not on the R&B or pop charts was "Back Door Santa,” released in 1968, and only because it was a #4 hit song on the separate Christmas charts. Its horn break was memorably sampled for “Christmas In Hollis” by Run-DMC.
Candi Staton got her start as one of Carter’s backup singers. They married in 1970 and had a son, Clarence Carter Jr., before divorcing in 1973.
The rise of disco hurt Carter’s career. Starting in 1975, he released three albums on ABC Records, but only charted once, with the #49 R&B “I Got Caught” (1975). It featured a heartfelt spoken word intro and dramatic lyrics that told the story of him cheating with another man’s wife.
In 1977, he wrote, produced and put out a rare single on his own label, Future Stars. “What Was I Suppose To Do” was an amazingly orchestrated, epic tale of jealousy and disrespect with a hypnotic groove. The song failed to chart and was largely forgotten, but was arguably the most unique record he ever released.
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