Clarence Carter, the Southern soul singer and guitarist who sang unabashedly of adultery and lust on hits of the late 1960s like \u201cSlip Away\u201d and \u201cBack Door Santa,\u201d died on Wednesday in Atlanta. He was 90.<\/p>\n
His death was confirmed by Rodney Hall, the president of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., where many of Mr. Carter\u2019s hits were recorded. Bil Carpenter, a friend of Mr. Carter\u2019s family, said the death, at a hospice facility, was from prostate cancer.<\/p>\n
Blind from youth and distinguished by his deep, declamatory baritone and lecherous, full-throated laugh, Mr. Carter combined the sermonic fervor of a backwoods preacher and the bawdy humor of a juke joint.<\/p>\n
His sensibilities are clear on the extended recitation that takes up much of \u201cMaking Love (At the Dark End of the Street),\u201d<\/a> his thorough reimagining of the soul singer James Carr\u2019s 1967 hit \u201cThe Dark End of the Street,\u201d written by Chips Moman and Dan Penn.<\/p>\n \u201cThey always talk about making love,\u201d Mr. Carter begins, his stentorian drawl backed by gospel-steeped keyboards and horns. \u201cYeah, making love \/ But have you ever sit down to think about \/ Everything that\u2019s got life in it likes to make love?\u201d<\/p>\n Over the next three minutes, Mr. Carter ruminates on the sexual predilections of horses, cows, mosquitoes and people, his musings growing more urgent and outlandish with each successive digression. By the time he sings the record\u2019s closing (and only) chorus, an anguished meditation on illicit love, he has delivered a performance that is as surreal as it is cathartic.<\/p>\n \u201cMaking Love\u201d (1969) was the B-side of the funky \u201cSnatching It Back,\u201d<\/a> which was recorded at FAME Studios and released by Atlantic Records. The chuckle that punctuates the record \u2014 and is also heard on the randy \u201cBack Door Santa\u201d<\/a> (1968) \u2014 was modeled on that of a disc jockey in Montgomery, Ala., known as Mr. Lee.<\/p>\n \u201cPatches,\u201d<\/a> sung from the perspective of a farmer\u2019s struggling son, was his biggest hit. Though more pop than his typically blues-based performances, the song, originally recorded by the soul group Chairmen of the Board, reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1970. Its spoken-word passages \u2014 as well as those on several of his other recordings \u2014 led him to be considered a precursor of rap.<\/p>\n \u201cLong before they had what they call a rap, me and Isaac Hayes and Barry White were doing the same thing,\u201d Mr. Carter said<\/a> in an interview with The New York Times in 1998. \u201cI listen to a lot of raps, and they wander on and on with no focus. When I talk in a song, I point in one direction and you know where I\u2019m heading. It\u2019s just a question of how I\u2019m gonna get there.\u201d<\/p>\n Numerous hip-hop artists, including Run-DMC and 2 Live Crew, have sampled Mr. Carter\u2019s records. \u201cStrokin\u2019,\u201d<\/a> a salacious original from 1986, was featured in the 1996 remake of \u201cThe Nutty Professor\u201d starring Eddie Murphy and in the 2011 thriller \u201cKiller Joe\u201d with Matthew McConaughey.<\/p>\n An out-of-left-field success, \u201cStrokin\u2019\u201d revived Mr. Carter\u2019s career at a point when his down-home approach no longer found favor with mainstream radio. Despite receiving little airplay because of its sexually explicit lyrics, the record sold more than 1.5 million copies and became a jukebox staple.<\/p>\n Clarence George Carter was born on Jan. 14, 1936, in Montgomery. His parents were sharecroppers.<\/p>\n Despite his blindness, Clarence taught himself to play blues-based guitar as a child. He later attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, where he learned to transcribe musical arrangements in Braille.<\/p>\n In 1960, after graduating with a bachelor\u2019s degree in music from Alabama State College (a historically Black school that is now a university), he teamed up with the singer and piano player Calvin Scott, another blind musician, to form the duo Clarence & Calvin. The two men played regularly in clubs in Birmingham and released singles for independent record labels before signing with FAME in 1965, by that point billing themselves as the C&C Boys.<\/p>\n The duo had just recorded its first single with FAME when Mr. Scott was seriously injured in a car accident, forcing him to retire from performing. Mr. Carter remained under contract as both a recording artist and a session guitarist. His first solo single, \u201cTell Daddy,\u201d<\/a> was a minor hit in 1967. Etta James\u2019s take on the song, \u201cTell Mama,\u201d became a Top 40 hit later that year.<\/p>\n In 1968, Mr. Carter met the gospel singer Candi Staton and introduced her to Rick Hall<\/a>, Rodney Hall\u2019s father, who was then the owner of FAME. Ms. Staton went on to record more than a dozen R&B hits, including a remake of the Tammy Wynette classic \u201cStand by Your Man.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Carter and Ms. Staton were married in 1970 and divorced three years later, after having a son, Clarence Carter Jr., also a performer. His survivors include his son and a granddaughter.<\/p>\n