Clarence Carter, Southern Soul Singer Behind ‘Slip Away’ and ‘Patches,’ Dies at 90

Clarence Carter, the blind-from-birth soul singer whose voice carried the sound of Southern juke joints and kitchen-table hard luck, died Wednesday from complications of pneumonia. He was 90. His management company confirmed the news.

Born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1936, Carter cut his teeth as half of Clarence & Calvin, a duo with another blind singer, Calvin Scott. When a car accident sidelined Scott, Carter went solo and scored his first R&B chart entry in 1967 with “Tell Daddy” — a self-written song that prompted Etta James to craft her own answer, “Tell Mama.”

The following year, he released “Slip Away,” a slow-burning plea for infidelity that became his signature. The single hit No. 2 on the R&B chart and No. 6 on the pop chart, and its afterlife was long: it turned up in films like The Commitments, Almost Famous, and Licorice Pizza, racking up over 45 million Spotify streams. The same year gave him “Back Door Santa,” a lewd holiday novelty later immortalized when Run-DMC sampled it for “Christmas in Hollis.”

Carter’s life and work intertwined with that of Candi Staton, a soul titan in her own right. They married in 1970 after she joined his backing vocalists, and he brought her to Rick Hall’s Muscle Shoals studio, helping launch her solo career. He co-wrote standout songs for Staton, including the Grammy-nominated “I’d Rather Be an Old Man’s Sweetheart (Than a Young Man’s Fool).” But his chronic infidelity soured the partnership. Staton later told the Guardian that Carter had reported her to the IRS, triggering a suicide attempt. The marriage ended in divorce three years in.

While the personal drama unfolded, Carter’s music kept climbing. In 1970 he released “Patches,” a cover of the Chairman of the Board track that told the story of a poor boy forced to take over his family’s farm after his father’s death. Carter delivered the narrative with a direct, wounded gravity that made the song a transatlantic hit. It was one of the first soul singles to treat rural poverty with that unflinching detail, and it stood apart from the era’s more polished protest music.

Across his catalog, Carter’s blindness was never a gimmick; it shaped his phrasing and his sense of space. His voice could switch from a preacher’s quiver to a barstool growl in a single line. That texture kept his songs alive in samples, on radio throwback hours, and in the jukeboxes of bars that don’t chase trends. He leaves a body of work that made everyday longing feel monumental.