Last night I was listening to That Ain’t Right, the excellent CD on the Delmark Records label, a collection that includes works by south side Chicago blues masters Magic Slim & The Teardrops, Chicago blues piano patriarch Sunnyland Slim, blues-drummer-without-peer Fred Below, and unsung blues slide guitar great Joe Carter.  The CD is phenomenal, and ideally represents Chicago blues in its most favorable light.

Of the 13 selections on the disc, six are credited to Joe Carter, and simply, they are uniformly strong.  Carter’s vocals are strong and assured, and his slide guitar proficiencies are on full and best display.  In a city that enjoys a valid reputation as long being ripe with slide guitar geniuses including Homesick James, J.B. Hutto, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Hound Dog Taylor, Lil’ Ed Williams, Earl Hooker, Johnny Littlejohn, Johnny Shines, and Louisiana Red, among so many others, the name Joe Carter is not one that quickly, if at all, rolls off of the lips of blues fans when discussing blues slide guitar.  For that reason, a brief overview of Carter’s life and times is in order.

Bron in early November, 1927 as Joseph J. Carter in Midland, Georgia, a town in Muscogee County, an area that lies in the far mid-eastern part of the state.  As with so many of the blues artists whose lives are profiled here, especially those whose careers were on the periphery of the music, very little is known about his lineage and early formative years.  However, what is known is that Carter’s chief mentoring on the guitar came from Lee Willis, an area player who also not much is known about.  What research that is available suggests that Willis was influential in schooling the young Carter on the various tunings the guitar could be played in, and how to effectively use a thumb pick to play the instrument. 

Carter honed his blues craft playing the usual country suppers, picnics, frolics, and venues where so many of his generation received their blues indoctrinations until 1925 when he made the decision to move north to Chicago to further his blues career.

Once in Chicago, Carter was, like many, completely overwhelmed by the breadth of strong blues talent residing and performing in the city, and wasted no time in absorbing as much of the music as he could in the mass of joints that presented “live” blues.  In these establishments, Carter found his keenest desires to witness the blues of Muddy Waters and Elmore James satisfied.  In fact, Carter was able to strike a friendship with Waters, and research puts forward that it was Waters who loaned Carter the money for his first proper guitar. 

It was after the purchase of his guitar that Carter aligned himself with Chicago bluesman Otis “Big Smokey” Smothers, in an effort to form his first band in Chicago, also bringing on board blues harmonica player Lester Davenport.  The three together were a formidable band, and immediately found welcoming success among the tough and demanding Chicago blues audiences.

It was during this period that the legendary independent Chicago blues label, Cobra Records, owned by Eli Toscano, showed interest in the high attention that Carter and his band were receiving and sought to sign them to the imprint, also offering to include the Chicago blues giant Freddie King to the studio efforts.  However, in what remains a very curious move by Carter, he turned the label’s overture down.  In a medium where having a record out to market as a performing band is a definite plus, Carter’s refusal to record for Cobra was predicated on his belief that he could earn more money working “live” in the clubs than he would earn from cutting records.  At the least in retrospect, Carter’s move seems misguided, and at worst it seems completely unfathomable.  Unfortunately for all blues fans, documenting Carter’s great band with Smothers and Davenport via recorded output never happened.  It also meant that Carter would not get another chance to record until the mid-to-later 1970s.

Carter continued to primarily perform in the 1950s at the famed 708 Club on E. 47^th St. in Chicago, where his unique meld of the best of the slide guitar styles of Waters and James, combined with his commanding vocals, made him and his crew blues audience favorites.  In fact, as an homage to Carter’s slide guitar flair, he was often billed as “Elmore James, Jr.”

A significant period of blues inactivity occurred for Carter, and during that stage, he held down a job at the vast Hormel meatpacking operation that was located on Chicago’s south side.

By the 1970s, Carter emerged from his blues inactivity, working the joints again, and realizing his first opportunity to record a full-length album.  The LP was entitled Mean & Evil Blues, and it was released in 1976 on the Barrelhouse Records label (note: a CD release of the collection was re-released by the Japanese P-Vine Records label in 1997).  The recording featured Carter’s still robust vocals and tough slide guitar attributes, with Walter “Big Red” Smith providing harmonica support, and Johnny Junious lending his drumming skills.

The simple “broomdusting” approach of Carter, his raspy, bellowed vocals, and the simplistic but highly effective band format highlighted that Carter still had the chops to satisfy the most discerning of blues fans.

Mentioning Carter’s raspy vocals above, well, that presaged what would turn out to be a very difficult circumstance n his life.  During the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Carter was still performing, and was often found on Chicago’s north side laying down his brand of blues with the backing band named The Ice Cream Men at the famed nightspot, Lilly’s, a joint on N. Lincon Ave.  Carter’s vocal roughness turned out to have been caused by throat cancer. 

Carter’s medical condition forced him to end his blues activities.  And by 2001, Carter passed away.

Never one to write original material, Carter’s success, especially during Chicago’s and his blues heydays in the 9150s era, was based upon the tried-and true formula of the highly appealing approaches to the blues slide guitar language put forth, again, by Waters and James.  However, Carter was extremely impassioned about his brand of blues, and his legacy is one all these years later of yet one more of a legion of somewhat obscure yet mysterious blues figures who were all too common during the golden age of post-war Chicago blues.

If you haven’t already done so, pick up a copy of the Delmark title mentioned earlier in this profile and consider Carter’s music for yourself.  There is certain much there to savor.