Carl Carlton

Born in Detroit, Michigan on May 21, 1952, singer and songwriter Carl Carlton would get his start as a recording artist while still a teenager under the name Little Carl Carlton, hoping to capitalize on the popularity of Little Stevie Wonder. He enjoyed some local success, but relocated to Houston after signing with the label Back Beat in 1968. He had his first hits on the R&B charts soon after with “Don’t Walk Away” and “Drop By My Place” in 1969 and 1970. He dropped “Little” from his stage name, and scored his breakthrough after his 1974 track “Everlasting Love” had a radio-friendly disco beat added to it. The song became a smash, hitting number 6 on the pop chart and number 11 on the R&B chart. The album of the same name would spawn another R&B top 20 hit, “Smokin’ Room”. A legal dispute over royalty payments kept him from releasing new material for a few years, but his 1980 self-titled album included the funky “She’s a Bad Mama Jama (She’s Built, She’s Stacked)”, a number 2 R&B and number 22 pop hit, as well as the best-selling single of his career. Three more R&B albums came out over the next fifteen years, but he transformed himself into a gospel artist for 2010’s God Is Good. Carl Carlton suffered from complications of a stroke in 2019. On December 13, 2025, he died at the age of 73.