Tom “Pops” Carter (1919-2012) was a well-known
and much beloved mainstay of the Denton music scene for decades, but his beginnings
read like a page
outta Delta Blues mythology. Born June 6th along the Louisiana
banks of the Red River in a long-vanished Bossier Parish cotton town, a
precocious 10-year-old Carter began sneaking out to hear the tent pole blues
shows that would drift through Shreveport. When he and his friends were about
to be tossed from one show by gruff tour roustabouts, a bluesman, whose name has
been lost to time, intervened. “You let them kids stay,” Pops remembered the old
musician growl that hot night, “They’s gonna sit here by the stage and get
schooled in th’ blues.” Young Tom Carter was lucky enough to be exposed to the sounds of
traveling legends like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lead Belly and T-Bone Walker.
He despised picking cotton in the family fields and received frequent beatings from his daddy for sneaking off, so the wily teen
packed a pillowcase and hitch-hiked to Houston. Living with an aunt and uncle
while working menial daytime jobs, Carter quickly became a fixture in the
vibrant blues scene of Houston’s Third and Fifth Wards within a few years. His
first band, The House Rockers, began by playing in the streets outside the hot clubs
but Carter was soon jamming onstage with the most prominent bluesmen of the
era. Lightnin’ Hopkins became a huge musical and personal influence. Hopkins even introduced Carter to his first-cousin, Minnie
Lee. It was no surprise that the two hit if off right away. “She was telling me about all these men who done her wrong,” Pops later
recalled, “and I said, ‘Mama, I can treat you better’n that.” By the time
Carter died a widower at age 92 after being married three times, it was Minnie
Lee, who he always called ‘Mama’, that he considered the greatest love of his
life. Carter would perform in Houston’s blues clubs during the 1940s and 50s
alongside luminaries such as B.B. King, Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown, Freddy
King, and Little Milton.
Despite his musical notoriety in Houston’s blues circles,
Carter still had to cover the bills. When a good-paying construction job drew
him to Denton in 1969 he was smitten by the energy and creativity of the music scene, and preferring the small-town intimacy of Denton, Carter decided
he didn’t want to live anywhere else. By now, almost fifty with a lifetime of
musical experience playing with blues legends, Carter came to be known as
“Pops” by the campus musicians who frequented his circuit of local pub gigs
during the 70s and 80s. Over the next four decades, ‘Pops’ Carter became a one-man
institution of Fry Street’s music scene as a friendly mentor and jam companion
to two generations of Denton musicians. Among the many
future talents that ‘Pops’ influenced were Robin “Texas Slim” Sullivan, The
Baptist Generals, and a young Stevie Ray Vaughn, who used to travel from Austin
to the dive bars of North Texas State University when making a name for
himself. Always dressed to the nines, flirty with the foxes, and singing into
the rafters, the smokey-voiced ‘Pops’ electrified audiences with his smiling disposition,
high-energy onstage dancing, and trademark “Hey
Hey Now!” callback that made him a mainstay for years. ‘Pops’ passion
was the blues, but he never hesitated to sing with rock, jazz, or punk bands
when asked. “He was a local icon,” recalled one
festival organizer, and while acts “were whittling about, he wanted to be on stage.”
Forming his own band Pops Carter and the Funkmonsters in 1990 when he
was 70 years old. The group offered a uniquely Denton fusion of blues, roots, soul,
and funk with a festive campus music vibe. “The music was in him,” Funkmonsters
From Outer Space member Clarence Pitts grins; “He brought the energy every time
he performed. He never did stop.”
