Clarence Carter – Patches

The first part of this song reminds me of my grandfather. He was a sharecropper during the depression in rural Tennessee. He and my grandmother had 5 kids, and they literally lived in shacks. The Waltons were well off in comparison. At some point when the kids got older, they moved into a regular house and also owned and operated a small grocery store. A few years after that they moved to the big city, Nashville and lived next to my uncle in a duplex. My grandfather died at the age of 80 in 1975. My grandmother would go on to live until 1992 and died at the age of 95.

The song peaked at number 04 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on September 19, 1970.

From Wikipedia,

The song was written by General Johnson, the lead singer of Chairmen of the Board, with Ron Dunbar, who worked in A&R and record production at the Invictus record label, owned and overseen by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, formerly of Motown. Dunbar was often credited with co-writing hit songs at Invictus with “Edyth Wayne”, a pseudonym used by Holland-Dozier-Holland during the time when they were in legal dispute with Motown and its music publishing arm Jobete to which they had been contracted.

The song tells a story about a boy born and raised in poverty on a backwoods farm in Alabama by a father who endured much suffering in life; the father dies before the boy is 13, entrusting the boy with the family and estate. The boy is forbidden from quitting school (as the father never could attend), so he must do all of the farm work before and after school so that he and his family have food. The burden is almost too much for the boy, especially after a flood wipes out a crop, but determination not to let his father down, along wth his mother’s prayers, keep him going. Years later, his mother has died and he and his younger siblings are adults, and he looks back on his father’s words as what helped him pull through those hard times.

The blind blues singer Clarence Carter heard the song, later saying: “I heard it on the Chairmen of the Board LP and liked it, but I had my own ideas about how it should be sung. It was my idea to make the song sound real natural…” Initially he thought “that it would be degrading for a black man to sing a song so redolent of subjugation,” but was persuaded to do so by record producer Rick Hall.

Carter recorded the song at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with Hall as producer and musicians including Junior Lowe (guitar), Jesse Boyce (bass), and Freeman Brown (drums). Carter’s recording was released in July 1970 and was described by a Billboard reviewer as a “powerful blues item” featuring a “blockbuster vocal work-out.” The record rose to No. 4 on the Hot 100, No. 2 on the R&B chart, and No. 2 on the UK singles chart.

Following Carter’s success, the song won the 1971 Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Song for its writers, Johnson and Dunbar.

Clarence Carter – Patches

I was born and raised down in Alabama
On a farm way back up in the woods
I was so ragged that folks used to call me Patches
Papa used to tease me about it
‘Cause deep down inside he was hurt
‘Cause he’d done all he could

My papa was a great old man
I can see him with a shovel in his hands, see
Education he never had
He did wonders when the times got bad
The little money from the crops he raised
Barely paid the bills we made

For, life had kick him down to the ground
When he tried to get up
Life would kick him back down
One day Papa called me to his dyin’ bed
Put his hands on my shoulders
And in his tears he said

He said, Patches
I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you

Two days later Papa passed away, and
I became a man that day
So I told Mama I was gonna quit school, but
She said that was Daddy’s strictest rule

So every mornin’ ‘fore I went to school
I fed the chickens and I chopped wood too
Sometimes I felt that I couldn’t go on
I wanted to leave, just run away from home
But I would remember what my daddy said
With tears in his eyes on his dyin’ bed

He said, Patches
I’m dependin’ on you, son
I tried to do my best
It’s up to you to do the rest

Then one day a strong rain came
And washed all the crops away
And at the age of 13 I thought
I was carryin’ the weight of the Whole world on my shoulders
And you know, Mama knew What I was goin’ through, ’cause

Every day I had to work the fields
‘Cause that’s the only way we got our meals
You see, I was the oldest of the family
And everybody else depended on me
Every night I heard my Mama pray
Lord, give him the strength to make another day

So years have passed and all the kids are grown
The angels took Mama to a brand new home
Lord knows, people, I shedded tears
But my daddy’s voice kept me through the years

Saying
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you

Oh, I can still hear Papa’s voice sayin’
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
I’ve tried to do my best
It’s up to you to do the rest

I can still hear Papa, what he said
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: General N. Johnson / Ronald Dunbar