Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Clarence Carter

A Heart Full of Song

1976 · ABC Records ABCD-943 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	ABC Records
Catalogue number	ABCD-943
Year	1976
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Soul/Funk
Producer	Clarence Carter
Musicians	Clarence Carter (vocals), Randy McCormick (piano), Marvin Taylor (steel guitar), Kenneth Bell (guitar), Clarence Carter (guitar), Harry Steven (guitar), Robert Wray (bass), J. Alfred Cook (bass), Roger Clark (drums), Mike Huey (percussion), Louis Stefonelli (percussion), Rick Rushing (percussion), Billy Rogers (synthesizer & bell tree), Charles Rose (horns), Harvey Thompson (horns), Ronnie Eades (horns), Harrison Calloway (horns), Charles Chalmers (background vocals), Donna Rhodes (background vocals), Sandra Chalmers (background vocals), Patricia Cooley (background vocals), Future Stars Strings (strings)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  ABCD-943-A CIRCLED 2 SXTS1 C7
Side B:  ABCD-943-B CIRCLED 1 SXTS2 A2

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

1976 - US ABC Records, Terre Haute-pressed stock bearing the SXT etch from Santa Maria-cut metalwork, demonstration/promo-stamped jacket <- this copy
1976 - US ABC Records, Santa Maria-pressed stock of the same release
1976 - Australia ABC Records
1976 - Japan ABC Records (matrix YX-8046-AB)
1976 - Argentina Music Hall (MH-14.254)
1978 - South Africa ABC Records (ABCL 329)
1979 - South Africa MCA Records (ML 4344)

This Pressing

1976 ABC ABCD-943 stereo - Terre Haute-pressed stock identified by the SXT etch on metalwork cut at Santa Maria, in a jacket stamped as a demonstration copy.

The Album

By the mid-1970s Clarence Carter, the blind Alabama soul singer who had broken through in the late 1960s with hits built on wit, innuendo and a weathered Southern-soul voice, had moved from his Atlantic/Fame home to ABC Records, and this album finds him producing himself at his own Future Stars Studios in Atlanta. The record leans into the lush, string-and-horn-laden soul sound of the era, pairing Carter originals like the title track's companion pieces with outside songs, including a cover of Ray Charles's blues standard and compositions from his longtime Fame collaborators George Jackson and Clarence Wilkins. Carter's writing and arranging team - horn charts by J. Alfred Cook, strings by Ted Stovall, his own vocal arrangements - reflects a veteran artist asserting full creative control over his sound rather than relying on an outside production house. The album arrived as Southern soul was being absorbed into the broader disco-era soul marketplace, and it stands as a transitional, self-produced statement from an artist whose earlier work helped define the gritty, humor-inflected end of the soul spectrum. It was received as a solid, if less commercially dominant, entry in Carter's catalog, valued by soul collectors more for its glimpse of Carter as auteur than for chart impact.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. All Messed Up
2. Heart Full of Songs
3. Danger Point
4. Jenning's Alley
5. Shoulder to Cry On

Side 2

1. That's What Your Love Means to Me
2. Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained
3. Come Back Baby
4. I Thought It Was Over
5. Don't Bother Me

The Label

The label carries the gold ABC Records logo over a rainbow of concentric pink-to-yellow rings, with the album and artist name set in the same bold type on both sides and the catalogue number ABCD-943 printed top right - a flat label with no deep groove, a design ABC used across its mid-1970s soul and pop releases rather than one unique to this title. The runout on each side carries an SXT designation, the mark ABC used when lacquer metalwork cut at one plant (Santa Maria) was shipped to a second plant (Terre Haute) for pressing; that etch is the only tell distinguishing this stock from the parallel Santa Maria-pressed run of the same release, since both runs share the identical label design and catalogue number. The two pressings are parallel manufacturing runs of the same 1976 release rather than an earlier and later issue, so this copy's place in the pressing is established by the SXT etch alone, not by the label artwork.

Fidelity

The runout's SXT etch indicates the lacquers were mastered at the company's Santa Maria plant before being shipped for pressing at the Terre Haute facility, a common arrangement for ABC titles of this period rather than a mark of special audiophile attention. Collectors generally regard ABC's mid-1970s pressings as solid if unremarkable commercial product, with Santa Maria-mastered/Terre Haute-pressed copies considered on par with the parallel Santa Maria-pressed run of the same release rather than clearly superior or inferior. No audiophile remastering or specialist reissue of this title is known to exist, so this pressing sits at the top of the album's practical fidelity hierarchy by default.

Notes

This is the 1976 US ABC Records stereo pressing of ABCD-943, identified as coming off the Terre Haute pressing line using lacquer metalwork cut and mastered at the company's Santa Maria facility, a relationship the runout's SXT etch signals. The jacket is a demonstration (not-for-sale) copy rather than a standard retail stock copy. The catalogue number, label design and 1976 copyright line on the labels are consistent with a first-year pressing of this ABC release; no deeper dead-wax photograph was available to confirm the precise stamper generation.

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