{"id":6378,"date":"2026-05-15T11:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=6378"},"modified":"2026-05-15T11:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:32:08","slug":"clarence-carter-soul-singer-known-for-patches-and-strokin-dies-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=6378","title":{"rendered":"Clarence Carter, soul singer known for \u2018Patches\u2019 and \u2018Strokin\u2019,\u2019 dies at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Clarence Carter, the blues and soul musician and singer-songwriter with the raspy, emotional vocals whose hits included the sentimental \u201cPatches\u201d and the salacious \u201cStrokin,\u2019\u201d has died at age 90.<\/p>\n

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Carter\u2019s death was confirmed by Bill Carpenter, a spokesman for his former wife and fellow singer, Candi Staton. Carter died Wednesday of natural causes, according to Carpenter.<\/p>\n

Carter, a self-taught guitarist who was born blind in Montgomery, Alabama, and majored in music at Alabama State College, had his biggest hit in 1970 with \u201cPatches,\u201d a plaintive tale about a poor country boy who must become a man and run his family\u2019s farm after his father dies.<\/p>\n

But he specialized in exuberantly raunchy songs like \u201cSlip Away,\u201d \u201cBack Door Santa\u201d and \u201cStrokin\u2019\u201d a funky, talking ode to sex (\u201cHave you ever made love just before breakfast?\u201d he asks) that was too explicit for commercial radio but became a standard on nightclub jukeboxes and was featured in Eddie Murphy\u2019s 1996 remake of \u201cThe Nutty Professor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another favorite was \u201cMaking Love on the Dark End of the Street,\u201d in which Carter narrates a long, cheerful account of how humans and other creatures will go to extremes in the pursuit of passion. His other songs about illicit love included \u201cSlip Away\u201d and \u201cBack Door Santa.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On his bluesy \u201cThe Road of Love,\u201d Carter was backed by Duane Allman, then a little-known rocker and session musician who went on to cofound The Allman Brothers Band and make memorable contributions to records by Eric Clapton and Wilson Pickett among others. His hard-hitting \u201cTell Daddy\u201d was the basis for an Etta James standard, \u201cTell Mama.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter recorded some of his biggest hits at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where Pickett, Aretha Franklin and other soul greats recorded. In later years, he recorded for the now-defunct Ichiban Records and his own Cee Gee Entertainment.<\/p>\n

Carter and Staton were married briefly the 1970s before they divorced. They had a son, Clarence Carter Jr.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

In a 2012 interview with The Montgomery Advertiser, the elder Carter said, \u201cI don\u2019t know how much longer I\u2019m going to be going, but I\u2019m going to keep going until something tells me it\u2019s time to quit or Old Man Death comes to run me down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Carter was known for raunchy songs like \u201cSlip Away\u201d and \u201cBack Door Santa.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"yoast_head":"\nClarence Carter, soul singer known for \u2018Patches\u2019 and \u2018Strokin\u2019,\u2019 dies at 90 - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=6378\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clarence Carter, soul singer known for \u2018Patches\u2019 and \u2018Strokin\u2019,\u2019 dies at 90 - 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