The Carter Brothers, "Southern Country Boy" c/w "Do The Flo Show," Jewel 45x745 (rel. 6/1965)
Piney-woods Southern soul brushed with hard blues--that's The Carter Brothers. They plied their tough, hard-hitting, passionate roots music from 1959 until 1967 on a series of regional singles. Today's single represents their career peak. It just missed the r&b Top 20 in the summer of '65, after the A and B sides were swapped due to DJ reactions. (It made #133 on the mainstream pop charts--a surprise, and a hopeful sign that white audiences were more comfortable with honest, unvarnished Black music at mid-decade.)
Roman Carter sang lead vocals and manned the bass; Albert Carter was lead guitar wailer. with Jerry Carter on keyboards and harmony vocals. They made their first singles in 1959 for the regional label Roxie Records in Paicoma, California. They then connected with one Duke Coleman, who wrote their material and recorded their next batch of singles, today's included. First issued on his Coleman label, Louisiana roots label Jewel Records picked it up for wider distribution. Although they couldn't convince any of the music magazines to review the single or promote the band, the powerful vibe of "Southern Country Boy" got on the charts in one of the toughest years for a commercial breakthrough.
Perhaps people needed some honest, hard-hitting backwoods music and embraced the Brothers' no-nonsense style. "Southern Country Boy" combines the gristly guitar of Elmore James, the blues shouting of B. B. King and perhaps a skosh of Slim Harpo, whose Excello singles hewed a similar path.
Jerry Carter's electric piano duets with Albert's ever-twangy guitar; they're tight with whomever was their pick-up drummer. Roman Carter's vocals and bass lines are spot-on. This is blues with no pretense at anything else. This was the music bands played in remote juke joints and dive bars all over the Southeast. It might have been a bit much for those listeners who preferred the smoother styliings of Motown or the Chicago soul school of stately poise. Enough listeners dug this excursion into the Delta backroads to get it a solid chart showing in the summer of 1965.
"Do the Flo Show" sounds like an A-side; it's more produced and as close to arranged as such rickety down-home records ever get. This is the sound The Rolling Stones tried so hard to mimic and couldn't quite achieve. Roman's spoken fashion and social behavior advice is priceless on this riff-cum-song. This is music to dance to with a bottle in one hand and some BBQ ribs in the other (and, by extension, all over one's shirt or blouse). One call feel the humid heat of a summer night, mingled with all the smells of a roadhouse or dive bar (and there are many).
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/45a9qcbqfa41rytirtf96/2130b.mp3?rlkey=q5kck2zsyw6dom1ca8h1haag8&st=d2uwh9ql&dl=0
The Carter Brothers got to write their own material, alternated with Duke Coleman's songs, for the remainder of their recording career. Despite the success of today's single, Jewel didn't attempt an LP. Not until 1981, when UK label Charly Records issued the compilation Blues in Session, were any of their singles reissued. CDs supplanted this vinyl release, but it's been a quarter of a century since those graced store shelves.
Tomorrow: This one, I confess, is showing off, although it's a great record. Evie Sands is back with one of her most in-demand Northern Soul classics. Read the story of how I found this rare record--and how little I paid for it!
''The riper the fruit, the sweeter the juice.' and 'When you startin' the mashed potato, careful you don't slip in the gravy.' Two wonderfully written songs and these bros really bring the growly sweaty funk to them!
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