Consumer Guide Album

Clarence Carter: The Best of Clarence Carter [Atlantic, 1971]
Carter is not a high-definition singer. His penetrating timbre, like his uvular growl and the lowdown heh-heh-heh chuckle he makes of it, is more trademark than identity. But his all-purpose preacherly delivery--the rap on "Dark End of the Street" is as good as the music--makes him a perfect conduit for the gospel-based Muscle Shoals sound, the way the low-definition Marvelettes were for Motown. The hooks are as simple as the horn charts--an organ riff, an echoed drumbeat, a heh-heh-heh. And none of the lesser hits sounds all that much like "Slip Away." A-