By Bob D’Angelo, Cox Media Group, 960 The Ref | Clarence Carter, the blind soul singer-songwriter whose hits included the sentimental “Patches” and the raunchy “Strokin’” and “Slip Away,” died on May 13. He was 90. Carter’s death was confirmed by Rodney Hall, president of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Rolling Stone reported.
Bill Carpenter, a spokesperson for Carter’s ex-wife and former fellow singer Candi Staton, also confirmed his death. He died of natural causes at a hospice facility in Atlanta, but Carpenter added that Carter had recently been diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer, according to the magazine.
“He was family,” Hall, the son of FAME founder/music producer Rick Hall, told AL.com. “He recorded here for four decades. Even after he stopped working with my dad, he’d still come rent the studio out.”
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, on Jan. 14, 1936, The New York Times reported. His parents were sharecroppers, and Carter was blind as a youth.
He taught himself to play bluesy guitar as a child and later attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, according to the newspaper. While at the school, Carter learned to transcribe musical arrangements in Braille.
Carter’s biggest hit was 1970’s “Patches,” a sentimental, plaintive story about a poor country boy who took over his family’s farm as a teenager after his father’s death.
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He enjoyed a renaissance when his 1986 song, “Strokin’,” was featured in the 1996 remake of “The Nutty Professor” and the 2011 film “Killer Joe,” Rolling Stone reported.
William Friedkin, who directed “Killer Joe,” said in a 2014 interview that “Strokin’” was “one of the great American songs,” adding that Carter was the “Mozart of Southern Music.”
The song’s sexually explicit lyrics prevented the song from getting much airplay, but it still sold more than 1.5 million copies and became a favorite in bar jukeboxes, according to the Times.
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Despite his blindness, Carter’s confidence never wavered.
“I’m determined to do what folks say I can’t, and it has to do with a lot of factors, especially when you’re blind,” he told the Times in a 1998 interview. “I remember hearing a lady say to my mother one day when I was a kid, ‘I guess you’re going to have to take care of him the rest of your life.’
“I never forgot that because I was determined that before the lady left this earth she’d know my mom wouldn’t have to take care of me.”
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Go here to read more about Mr. Carter’s life and career:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/clarence-carter-patches-strokin-soul-singer-dies-at-90/
Photo: Clarence Carter memorial | From Today’s Throwback Track 70s, 80s and 90’s music (no credit listed) https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1292616302974514&set=a.428545389381614
