Carl Carlton, Who Scored Hits With “Everlasting Love” and “She’s a Bad Mama Jama,” Dies

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Carl Carlton performing on The Midnight Special in 1974.

Carl Carlton, the Detroit R&B and soul singer best known for his hit cover version of “Everlasting Love” and later with the funk-ified “She’s a Bad Mama Jama (She’s Built, She’s Stacked),” died December 14, 2025. His death, at 73, was announced by his son on Facebook. No cause of death was cited but the performer was known to have suffered a stroke in 2019.

Born Carlton Hudgens on May 21, 1953, in Detroit, Carlton began his music career in the mid-1960s under the name “Little Carl” Carlton, as a direct nod to Stevie Wonder, who was known as “Little Stevie” Wonder at the time, and with whom he shared a similar vocal style.

After several singles failed to break through, Carlton recorded a disco-inflected remake of “Everlasting Love,” a 1967 hit for Robert Knight. Carlton’s 1974 cover of the Buzz Cason-Mac Gayden composition on ABC Records reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #11 on the Soul singles chart.

Watch him perform the song on The Midnight Special on Nov. 29, 1974

He was unable to repeat the song’s crossover success until his 1981 single for 20th Century Fox Records, “She’s a Bad Mama Jama (She’s Built, She’s Stacked),” written and produced by Leon Haywood. The song’s narrator is admiring a sexy woman with such horndog lyrics as “Her body measurements are perfect in every dimension, She’s got a figure that’s sure enough getting attention, She’s poetry in motion, a beautiful sight to see, I get so excited viewing her anatomy.”

The single became Carlton’s signature song, reaching #2 on the Soul chart and garnering him a Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance. Though it peaked at just #22 on the pop chart, it earned Gold single status, representing sales of over one million copies.

Carlton continued recording but failed to substantially connect with any follow-up singles.