Clarence Carter, blind soul singer behind Slip Away dies at 90

Clarence Carter, whose voice could sound like a revival tent and a juke joint in the same verse, died on May 14 at 90 after stage 4 prostate cancer, pneumonia and sepsis. The Montgomery-born singer built a career that joined gospel intensity, country-soul feeling and earthy humor, making him one of the clearest bridges between church-rooted Southern soul and the more playful, sexually candid music that followed.

Blind from birth and raised in a sharecropping family, Carter learned music the hard way and on his own terms. He taught himself guitar by listening closely to John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Jimmy Reed, then studied at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Talladega and earned a music degree from Alabama State College in 1960. That same year, Montgomery was also a city on edge, as the Montgomery County Courthouse sit-in helped spark two weeks of student-led protests, a backdrop that underscored the political and social volatility shaping Black life in the South.

Carter turned his blindness into part of the texture of his art, not a gimmick. He referred to it directly in songs such as “I’d Rather Go Blind” and “I Can’t See Myself,” folding lived experience into a catalog that mixed vulnerability with swagger. “Slip Away” and “Patches” became Top 10 hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s, carrying his rough-edged delivery into the mainstream. “Patches” also brought Carter a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male, at the 13th Annual Grammy Awards.

His 1968 holiday single “Back Door Santa” became something larger than a seasonal novelty. With its raunchy humor and sly confidence, the song took on a long afterlife on radio and in cult pop culture, helping define the adult, mischievous side of soul that later funk, R&B and hip-hop artists would mine for attitude, rhythm and narrative bite.

Carter kept working far beyond his first wave of hits. He released 37 albums over his career, scored another cult favorite with “Strokin’” in 1986 and founded Cee Gee Entertainment in 1996, asserting control over his own work at a time when Black artists were often denied it. His catalog also circulated widely through film and television, extending his reach well past the era that first made him a star.