Carl Carlton

An interesting story kicks off Carl Carlton's career when the kid from Detroit was playing baseball and a neighbour shouted at the kids playing to stop and also to turn off the radio. To his surprise their riposte was "that ain't no radio, that's Carl".

So he ran down to see who this boy with the loud soulful voice was. He would later take the young lad to Lando Records where he begain recording under the moniker 'Little Carl Carlton' in the 60's.

The first single he released for Lando was called "I Love True Love". A single he released a few years later called "Competition Ain't Nothin'" was noticed by Don Robey who took him to Back Beat Records and Carl relocated to Houston.

Carl Carlton was listening to an album of his friend David Ruffin and the song "Everlasting Love" was later recorded. It was one side of the single with "I Wanna Be Your Main Squeeze".

However when a new disco arrangement of "Everlasting Love" was released, Carlton had his first hit as it moved to #6 on the Pop Charts and #11 on the R&B Charts.

The "Everlasting Love" album the song was on also provided him with another pop hit "Smokin' Room" when it was released as a single, this being his second hit.

In 1975 he worked with producer Bunny Sigler and came up with the album "I Wanna Be With You". The album is considered by many to be his best and received favourable reviews however he was also engulfed in a royalty dispute with ABC Records at the time and the album only barely charted.

The royalty dispute would eventually mean Carlton could not record for a year and a half (until his contract with ABC had run up).

After this period away, he came back with a single called "You You" in 1977 with Mercury Records, this being the only single he released with them.

After some difficulty getting a new recording contract for a few years, Leon Haywood helped him land a singles deal with 20th Century Records who Haywood himself was with.

The first single had a brief stay in the charts, however the second single he released for them called "She's A Bad Mama Jama" written by Haywood was a big success, staying at #2 in the charts for 8 consecutive weeks (the Diana Ross and Lionel Richie ballad "Endless Love" being the song that prevented it from getting to number 1).

These fruitful efforts meant he could release an album called 'Carl Carlton' in 1981, with an album cover which showed the kind of physique you can achieve if you have too much time on your hands as the unsigned Carl had for a few years.

The album was also a success achieving Gold status. The album and hit single were to be he highest points in Carl Carlton's recording career.

'She's A Bad Mama Jama' has been sampled by numerous rappers and is regularly featured on 80's style compilation albums meaning that the name Carl Carlton at least should not be completely unknown to new generations of music listeners.