Clarence Carter , the blind Southern soul star who scored two Top 10 hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s with “ Slip Away ” and “ Patches ,” died today, May 14, following diagnosis of Stage 4 prostate cancer and a battle with pneumonia and sepsis. He was 90. His death was first reported by Rolling Stone, with the magazine confirming the news with Rodney Hall, president of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and Candi Staton, the singer and Carter’s ex-wife. After having hits on the R&B charts (including 1965’s “Step By Step” and 1967’s “Tell Daddy”), Carter landed on the pop charts – as well as, concurrently, the R&B lists – with 1968’s “Slip Away,” a song that highlighted Carter’s powerful and emotional baritone voice with a lyric in which the singer implores his married lover for a secret rendezvous (“Could you just slip away without him knowing you’re gone?/Then we could meet somewhere, somewhere where we’re both not known”).…