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Brent Carter<\/strong> is among the most criminally unsung singers of soul – a man who has been the lead singer for both R&B super bands Tower of Power AND the Average White Band, PLUS sang the Maurice White vocal parts for Maurice Hines\u2019 short-lived Earth Wind & Fire on Broadway musical, \u201cHot Feet.\u201d\u00a0 From the time he was a child \u2013 Brent has worked in national traveling theater shows, sung radio commercial jingles and was a featured background singer for Regina Belle and BeBe & CeCe Winans. Now, the New York native is embarking upon his first foray into recording\/performing as a solo artist. That journey begins with his clever, catchy and flirtatious debut single, \u201cSo Smooth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverything I\u2019ve done up to now has been for other people,\u201d Brent confirms. \u201cI decided to give something a shot just for me. I went in the studio, wrote the song and co-produced the session with a guy out of Brooklyn named Scott Yahney. There\u2019s stuff out now like what Daft Punk did with Nile Rodgers that mixes the new and old school together. So I wrote about a dude my age hollering at a young girl. Now, personally, I\u2019m not a guy into young girls but a lot of young guys don\u2019t know how to act or talk to women. \u2018So Smooth\u2019 is about an older guy meeting a girl that thinks she\u2019s gonna run game but winds up falling in love. He apologizes singing, \u2018Sorry, I didn\u2019t mean to be so smooth.\u2019 I threw a lil\u2019 Rakim in at the beginning in homage to me coming up in New York when Hip Hop was young, plus a couple of old sayings for people my age. It\u2019s all really tongue in cheek.\u201d<\/p>\n Brent received his music and stage talents honest. His father Frenchie Carter (a crooner with a tenor to baritone range in the style of like Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis) was a short-lived member of Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. His mother, Mary Carter, was an actress\/model who also sang. His great aunt, Evelyn Roderick, was a Julliard-trained pianist who toured with Fats Waller in the `30s and later directed choirs in Connecticut including famed Wings Over Jordan. While studying social work at Suny State College NY at New Paltz, singing reentered his life when he joined his Alpha Phi Alpha frat brother Daryl Ware\u2019s then-new ensemble Voices of Unity for which he was a featured lead vocalist. Brent made the leap into fronting bands when he heard that Oakland Soul stalwarts Tower of Power needed a new singer. Though he\u2019d never led a band before, he prepared for the audition like he was preparing for the lead in a play. He studied old videos of Sammy Davis, Jr. and Otis Redding as well as old favorites Michael Jackson and Eddie Levert (of the O\u2019Jays). He nailed the gig, joining T.O.P. in April 1994 following in the footsteps of lead singers Rufus Miller, Rick Stevens, Lenny Williams, Hubert Tubbs and Ellis Hall. He stayed 7 years and recorded 3 CDs: Souled Out (Epic – 1995), Rhythm & Business (Epic – 1997), then Soul Vaccination: TOP Live (550 Music \u2013 1999). He even co-wrote one song, \u201cThis Type of Funk,\u201d but T.O.P. didn\u2019t cut it until after he left in 2001.<\/p>\n While Brent had to bone up to work with T.O.P., segueing into Scottish soul survivors the Average White Band (AWB) was a piece of cake – he grew up loving their hits. AWB toured often with T.O.P. so Brent became fast friends, even riding on their tour bus. On the side, Morris Pleasure, AWB sax man Freddy V and Brent were in the group Watersign. When AWB singer Klyde Jones got a call to work with Hall & Oates, Freddy and founder Alan Gorrie brought Brent in as a sub. He\u2019s been with AWB ever since, putting his own spin on songs made famous by original member Hamish Stuart plus new material tailored for him.<\/p>\n In between T.O.P. and AWB into the present, Brent has continued to do Broadway and touring musical productions including the gospel plays \u201cWho Can You Trust\u201d and \u201cForbidden Fruit\u201d produced by Mike Matthews (a precursor to Tyler Perry). He\u2019s worked alongside stars such as singers Ralph Tresvant (New Edition), Mark Middleton (BLACKstreet), as well as actors Marla Gibbs, Todd Bridges and the late James Avery.<\/p>\n Then there was the Broadway jukebox musical \u201cHot Feet\u201d created by Maurice Hines and Maurice White that brought the music of Earth Wind & Fire to the Great White Way. Brent landed a lead offstage vocal role that had him to singing 14 EWF classic for the onstage dancers including \u201cSeptember,\u201d \u201cBoogie Wonderland,\u201d \u201cAfter the Love is Gone,\u201d \u201cSerpentine Fire\u2019 and \u201cShining Star.\u201d It played a month in Washington, D.C. then three months on Broadway. \u2018My father brought my stepmother, Wyetta Turner (a dance sensation who was in the musical \u201cHair\u201d and the movie version of \u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d) to opening our night. Everyone from Debbie Allen (whose daughter Vivian Nixon was starring in \u201cHot Feet\u201d) to the late great Geoffrey Holder was gushing over her. I was so happy my father got a chance to see me on Broadway\u2026and show off his wife. He passed away three years ago and she died a year after him\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Brent is focusing on polishing his debut CD to perfection, working with a number of new and veteran producer\/songwriters including Mo Pleasure. \u201cI\u2019m a ballad singer so I\u2019ll have a lot of ballads and mid-tempos,\u201d he shares. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to sound like Little Anthony & The Imperials from 40 years ago but there\u2019s also no sense in me trying to sound like Chris Brown, Miguel or Usher either. I have my own slot. I may not have 800 hits in me\u2026but I\u2019ve got \u2018So Smooth\u2019 for a strong start and a few more in me as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brent Carter is among the most criminally unsung singers of soul – a man who has been the lead singer for both R&B super bands Tower of Power AND the Average White Band, PLUS sang the Maurice White vocal parts for Maurice Hines\u2019 short-lived Earth Wind & Fire on Broadway musical, \u201cHot Feet.\u201d\u00a0 From the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/317\/revisions\/321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cGrowing up, I thought everybody could sing,\u201d Brent shares. \u201cWhen my sister Dawn and I were in the car, Daddy would turn up the radio on our favorite songs and give all four of us (w\/ Mom) our specific harmony parts. It was all family fun but that training helped me get jingles. I could catch on to harmony parts fast.\u201d Brent sang on radio spots for Hardy\u2019s and Campbell\u2019s, and was a featured kid\u2019s voice on ABC-TV\u2019s \u201cMultiplication Rock\u201d for the segment \u201cFour-Legged Zoo.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/70snightclubreunion.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Brent-Carter-jlb-10-17-15-9648-211x300.jpg\")
Brent\u2019s earliest influences came from the rainbow of crossover music wafting over Top 40 radio in the late `60s\/early 70s: Motown\u2019s Stevie Wonder (\u201cIf You Really Love Me\u201d) and the Jackson 5 (\u201cI Want You Back\u201d), the Beatles and Aretha. He learned a lot firsthand from his uncle Ed Zant (a member of the Atlantic Records soul vocal quartet Ace Spectrum) who let him quietly observe recording sessions. His first steady successes came following in his mother\u2019s footsteps doing modeling and theater. At 12, he appeared on Broadway as a slave boy in \u201cShenandoah,\u201d once singing \u201cFreedom\u201d from the play before a TV audience of 72 million during a Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade. \u201cOnce I\u2019d been on Broadway, I knew I wanted to be an entertainer,\u201d Brent states. He then began attending his mother\u2019s alma mater, Performing arts High School in New York, studying theater.<\/p>\n
\nAfter college, he worked at Covenant House doing social work but continued to network in the music biz. He landed at Charles Huggins\u2019 Hush Productions where he recorded and toured with in-house artists B Fats, Milira and Aleese Simmons.. A recommendation from singer\/bassist Chris Walker led to road work with Regina Belle which led to a chance encounter with gospel star BeBe Winans in an airport.<\/p>\n