Muscle Shoals, located in the northwest of Alabama of the South, is a rural town on the Tennessee River. It exactly means the name of the district including small towns like Florence, Sheffield and Tuscambia, where is so deep in the middle of conservative rural district that we cannot imagine it became the place constantly spawning significant music on and after the late '60s. On Peter Guralnick's "Sweet Soul Music", there are volumes of pages describing about Muscle Shoals in a very fascinating way. In the late fifties the Fame Studios were made of stuff in hand at the second floor of a local drag store, and musicians got together in the hope of making a hit by sending demo tapes to Nashville. After a quarrel and parting with son of the drug store Tom Stafford, Rick Hall, the owner and producer of Fame and an ambitious perfectionist, built the new Fame Studios where he cut Arthur Alexander's You Better Move on, a country tune featuring his crude and a little less reliable delivery. This hit in '62 had been known quite wider with the help of the Rolling Stones' version, and finally gave Rick Hall formal studios. And in '64 he got out of the one-hit wonder status with Jimmy Hughes' Steal Away from his own Fame label. This pop hit was stimulating because of singing about infidelity, and the backings and his tenor brought the gospel-tinged atmosphere, which marked the later Muscle Shoals sound. This lead various musicians and artists to the studios; some of them expected Rick Hall's budget studio band (at the cost of musicians), and some asked the grooves brought from the studios. Moreover, musicians who left from Rick Hall built the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and spawned many hits. "The Muscle Shoals Sound", including two songs I had mentioned and recordings in the prime time, was a fine disc you can listen their soul hits in a bundle. I am looking forward to an alternative compilation.
Rick Hall's Fame label had not carried so many artists, and its main stay was Candi Staton who could have a series of hits. Clarence Carter I pick up here had cut some sides at the Fame Studios before becoming a star in Atlantic. This blind man learned to play guitar in his childhood and grew up with John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins or Jimmy Reed. After studying music in a colleage, he formed a duo with another blind man Calvin Scott and appeared in front of Rick Hall after cutting some singles. "Snatching It Back", the compilation ranging from '65 to '71, let you hear their Step by Step, the combination of Calvin's tenor and Clarence's baritone. After Calvin's traffic accident and retirement, he became solo and released a ballad I Stayed Away Too Long and Tell Daddy at the Fame imprint. Tell Daddy was later covered as the title tune of the album "Tell Mama" by Etta James who came from Chess of Chicago and had recordings at Fame. His original shows the cool arrangements such as the part from the opening horns to the intro reading. And then he moved to Atlantic but stayed at Fame where he set a series of hits.
Although Clarence Carter, a blind guitarist, should be thought as among the blues singers such as Blind Wille Johnson, he is a southern soul singer largely influenced by country music. His sound is loose and tight and brought from studio musicians of Fame horn and rhythm sections. Backed by them, his rich baritone roars on ballads, barks on up-tempos, and sounds like preaching on the spoken ones. His heavy and ironic humor was neccessary for him to survive his blind life, which reminds me of Ray Charles. The mean chuckle in his trademark was said to be the mimicking of Mr. Lee, the DJ of his hometown Montgomery, Alabama. Not to mention the chuckle just before singing on Looking for a Fox, there are his "Ha, Ha, Ha"s here and there on Back Door Santa, a weird but cool Christmas song. Mid-tempos such as his hits like Slip Away,Too Weak to Fight or Snatching It Back. The blues featuring the great Duane Allman's guitar such as The Road of Love or That Old Feeling. And weepers like I Can't See Myself or I'd Rather Go Blind which resounds in my mind in the different meaning from Etta James' appeared on "Tell Mama". These are full of southern soul and fantastic. Meanwhile, there are tunes which cannot strike your heart if you don't know the meaning of words, such as Patches, with more country-tinged strings and chorus and James Carr's Making Love (at the Dark End of the Street), featuring his more rustic speaking before singing whch was then popular and inspired by Isaac Hayes. The former is a dramatic composition telling the severe story of a poor farmer's son in his teens, and the latter begins with the outspoken preacher saying, "Horses make love. Cows make love. Mosquitoes make love. And human beings make love" and leads to grand reading of infidelity. The folks, who are allured by the universal side of the southern soul appeared on Duane Allman's guitar, cannot be so familiar with the domestic side such as Clarence Carter's country-influenced singing and speaking. So he is not said to be so popular in Japan. However, since southern soul and country are often in common with themes and feelings, Clarence Carter should have made a crossover success, that is, he was relatively heard by the whites.
Leaving from Atlantic in '71, he released sides at Fame label again, but resulted in little success. After moving label to label, he had a moderate hit Strokin' in '88. This combines earthy speaking in his Making Love-style with light-hearted grooves and its promotion video is sexual but funny. "The Best of Clarence Carter", including this one and his other outings at Ichiban records, is well relaxing. You can hear a clear re-making of Slip Away, however, you cannot find in it the smoldering sound, which was put by the old Muscle Shoals men, drummer Roger Hawkins, keyboardist Barry Beckett, guitarists Jimmy Johnson and Albert Lowe and bassist David Hood. While many artists wanted the Muscle Shoals sound, Clarence Carter, who had enjoyed the benefits almost from the beginning, seems not to be a slave of it. He has already tasted the sweetness and bitterness of life and has a little slanting humor. His status is pretty interesting. (2008/10/30)