[2] Born to a Baptist preacher's family in Coahoma, Mississippi, he moved with his parents to Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of three.

[1] Carr began singing in church, and performed in gospel groups including the Harmony Echoes,[3] at the same time as making tables on an assembly line in Memphis.

[5][6] Carr continued to have chart entries with his later singles on Goldwax, including "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man", but his greatest success and most critically acclaimed performance came in 1967 with his original recording of "The Dark End of the Street", written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman.

Carr continued to record for Goldwax until the label closed in 1969, but failed to reach the same heights with his subsequent releases, though "A Man Needs a Woman" in 1968 reached number 16 on the R&B chart and number 63 on the pop chart, and he recorded an album of the same title.

[2][4] After Goldwax closed down in 1969, he released a single on Atlantic Records in 1971, and another on his manager Roosevelt Jamison's River City label in 1977.