Live With the DR.

An irrepressibly inventive songwriter and a guitarist with distinctively countrified style, Clarence Carter can boast of one of soul music’s longest and most unusual careers. After a string of brilliant deep-soul records for Atlantic, Carter nearly dropped off the radar. Yet he continued to record and perform tough-minded, salacious blues and soul before scoring a surprise hit in 1986 with “Strokin’”: a straightforward and insightful ode to lovemaking that combined deliciously dirty rhymes with honky-tonk guitar licks and a synthed-out ‘80s rhythm section. “Strokin'” was one of the most unexpected R&B hits of the ‘80s, and its success instantaneously revived Carter’s career. It also birthed a randy new persona for Carter: Dr. C.C., a shameless lothario who penned numbers like “I Like to Screw” and “Let’s Funk." Live with the DR. is a nicely grooving concert set from the height of the Dr. C.C. era. Clarence delivers sprightly, synth-dusted versions of Atlantic-era hits like “Slip Away” and “Too Weak to Fight,” but he mostly focuses on newer material like “Don’t Stop Pushing” and, of course, “Strokin',” which receives an eight-minute-plus treatment that may be the song’s definitive reading.