296) Clarence Carter — “Back Door Santa”
This is no “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Carter’s Santa is nobody’s fool — he gives kids a few pennies so that he and the mommies can be alone.
Clarence Carter ended a triumphant 1968 by releasing this A-side, which “must certainly be the ax heavyweight champion of all randy Christmas offerings.” kencopper.blogspot.com/2018/12/some-christmas-leer.html?m=1
Jason Ankeny in All Music Guide explains that:
[Carter] exemplified the gritty, earthy sound of Muscle Shoals R&B, fusing the devastating poignancy of the blues with a wicked, lascivious wit to create deeply soulful music rooted in the American South of the past and the present. Born . . . in Montgomery, AL, Carter was blind from birth. . . . He ended 1968 with a superbly funky Christmas single, the raunchy “Back Door Santa[.”]
The song’s legacy has unfortunately been besmirched. As Sean Maunier laments:
Clarence Carter’s raunchy 1968 recording of “Back Door Santa” is an iconic anti-Christmas song, but somewhere along the line, someone made the mistake of telling Bon Jovi, who then decided to cover it with full-throated, aggressively horny sincerity. This has the dubious honor of being perhaps the single most off-putting song you could have sing-shouted at you over arena rock guitars.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.metroweekly.com/2021/12/the-10-worst-christmas-songs-of-all-time/amp/
I thought Sean must have been exaggerating. Then I listened to the Bon Jovi version. Talk about desecration. 🤮🤮🤮. It belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame.
Here is Bon Jovi’s abomination:
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations 