Things Are Getting Better?

Clarence Carter - And They Say Don't Worry

Roy "C" - We're on the Road to Hell

The social message of soul music made a dramatic change by the end of the '60s and at the dawn of the '70s. Artists began to move away from songs about improvement and empowerment and began instead to present blunt statements about racism, poverty, the war in Vietnam, and other issues. Clarence Carter's "And They Say Don't Worry," from his Sixty Minutes With FAME LP, presents the flip side to the optimism that politicians and the media promulgated during the early '70s over a groove that is similar to that of his FAME hit "I'm the Midnight Special." More pointed, however, is Roy C's Alaga recording "We're on the Road to Hell," whose discussion of the war in Vietnam is, unfortunately, in some respects extremely relevant today. The country soul groove of Roy's Alaga and Mercury sides of the time is used to good effect here.