They were the first vocal group to become country music stars, and were among the first groups to record commercially produced country music. Their first recordings were made in Bristol, Tennessee, for the Victor Talking Machine Company under producer Ralph Peer on August 1, 1927. This was the day before country singer Jimmie Rodgers made his initial recordings for Victor under Peer.
The original group consisted of Sara Carter, her husband A. P. Carter, and her sister-in-law Maybelle Carter. Maybelle was Sara's first cousin, and was married to A.P.'s brother Ezra Carter (Eck). All three were born and raised in southwest Virginia. They were immersed in the tight harmonies of mountain gospel music and shape note singing. The latter dated to the early 19th century and revivals in the South.
Throughout the group's career, Sara Carter sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar or autoharp. Maybelle sang harmony and played lead guitar. On some songs A.P. did not perform at all; on some songs he sang harmony and background vocals, and occasionally he sang lead. Maybelle's distinctive guitar-playing style became a hallmark of the group. Her Carter Scratch (a method for playing both lead and rhythm on the guitar) has become one of the most copied styles of guitar playing.
The group (in all its incarnations, see below) recorded for a number of companies, including RCA Victor, ARC group, Columbia, Okeh and various imprint labels.[2][3][4]
The Carter Family made their first recordings on August 1, 1927.[5] The previous day, A.P. Carter had persuaded his wife Sara Carter and his sister-in-law Maybelle Carter to make the journey from Maces Spring, Virginia, to Bristol, Tennessee, to audition for record producer Ralph Peer. Peer was seeking new talent for the relatively embryonic recording industry. The initial sessions are part of what are now called the Bristol Sessions. The band received $50 for each song recorded, plus a half-cent royalty on every copy sold of each song for which they had registered a copyright. On November 4, 1927, the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor) released a double-sided 78 rpm record of the group performing "Wandering Boy" and "Poor Orphan Child". On December 2, 1928, Victor released "The Storms Are on the Ocean" / "Single Girl, Married Girl", which became very popular.
By the end of 1930, the Carter Family had sold 300,000 records in the United States. Realizing that he would benefit financially with each new song he collected and copyrighted, A.P. traveled around southwestern Virginia to find new songs; he also composed new songs. In the early 1930s, he befriended Lesley "Esley" Riddle, a black guitar player from Kingsport, Tennessee. Lesley accompanied A.P. on his song-collecting trips. In June 1931, the Carters did a recording session in Benton, Kentucky, along with Jimmie Rodgers. In 1933, Maybelle met the Speer Family at a fair in Ceredo, West Virginia, fell in love with their signature sound, and asked them to tour with the Carter Family.
Second generation
A.P. Carter General Store Museum at the Carter Fold at Maces Springs, Virginia near Hiltons, Virginia
In the 1939–40 season, the children of A.P. and Sara (Janette and Joe Carter) and those of Maybelle (Helen, June, and Anita) joined the group for radio performances, by then in San Antonio, Texas. Here the programs were prerecorded and distributed to multiple border radio stations. (The children did not, however, perform on the group's records.) In the fall of 1942, the Carters moved their program to WBT radio in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a one-year contract. They occupied the sunrise slot, with the program airing between 5:15 and 6:15a.m.
By 1936, A.P. and Sara's marriage had dissolved. After Sara married A.P.'s cousin, Coy Bayes, they moved to California. The Carter Family disbanded in 1944.
Maybelle continued to perform with her daughters Anita Carter, June Carter, and Helen Carter and recorded on 3 labels (RCA Victor, Columbia and Coronet) as "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle" (sometimes billed as "The Carter Sisters" or "Maybelle Carter and the Carter Sisters" or "Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters"). In 1943, Maybelle Carter and her daughters, using the name "the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle" had a program on WRNL in Richmond, Virginia.[6] Maybelle's brother, Hugh Jack (Doc) Addington Jr., and Carl McConnell, known as the Original Virginia Boys, also played music and sang on the radio show.
Opry management didn't want the Carters to bring Chet when they were offered a regular spot on the Grand Ole Opry but Ezra Carter (their father and manager) insisted that Chet come with them, as he was a part of their troupe or band now. Finally the Opry management agreed and Chet went with them when they were hired by WSM and the Grand Ole Opry; their first day was May 29, 1950. Chet worked with them when they did "personals" off and on for 8 years, but mostly on the live Grand Ole Opry performances.[7] A.P., Sara, and their children Joe and Janette recorded 3 albums in the 1950s under the name of The A.P. Carter Family.
After the death of A.P. Carter in 1960, Mother Maybelle Carter and the Carter Sisters began using the name "the Carter Family" for their act during the 1960s and 1970s. Maybelle and Sara briefly reunited, recorded a reunion album (An Historic Reunion), and toured in the 1960s during the height of folk music's popularity.[8]
A film documentary about the family, Sunny Side of Life, was released in 1985.
In 1987, reunited sisters June Carter Cash and Helen and Anita Carter, along with June's daughter Carlene Carter, appeared as the Carter Family. They were featured on a 1987 television episode of Austin City Limits, along with June's husband Johnny Cash.[9]
Third generation
The Carter Family name was revived for a third time, under the name Carter Family III. It was a project of descendants of the original Carter Family, John Carter Cash (grandson of Maybelle Carter, son of June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash) and Dale Jett (grandson of A.P. and Sara Carter), along with John's wife Laura (Weber) Cash. They released their first album, Past & Present, in 2010.[10]
Rosie Nix Adams, daughter of June Carter Cash and her second husband, was also a semi-regular performing member of the Carter Family.
Third Generation family member Carlene Carter (granddaughter of Maybelle Carter) had ventured into pop music before becoming part of the 1987 Carter Family's second generation revival.
As important to country music as the family's repertoire of songs was Maybelle's guitar playing. She developed her innovative guitar technique largely in isolation; her style is today widely known as the "Carter scratch" or "Carter Family picking". While Maybelle did use a flatpick on occasion, her major method of guitar playing was the use of her thumb (with a thumbpick) along with one or two fingers. What her guitar style accomplished was to allow her to play melody lines (on the low strings of the guitar) while still maintaining rhythm using her fingers, brushing across the higher strings.
Before the Carter family's recordings, the guitar was rarely used as a lead or solo instrument among musicians.[citation needed] Maybelle's interweaving of a melodic line on the bass strings with intermittent strums is now a staple of steel string guitar technique. Flatpickers such as Doc Watson, Clarence White and Norman Blake took flatpicking to a higher technical level, but all acknowledge Maybelle's playing as their inspiration.
It has been noted that "by the end of the twenties, Maybelle Carter scratch ... was the most widely imitated guitar style in music. Nobody did as much to popularize the guitar, because from the beginning, her playing was distinctive as any voice."
—quoted in The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music (2005)[12]
Keep on the Sunny Side, a musical play chronicling the Carter Family's rise to stardom, premiered at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, in 2001. Conceived and written by Douglas Pote, the play enjoyed a multiyear run, a national tour spanning 23 states, and an original cast recording; the Barter has also mounted numerous revivals amid lasting popularity.
Renewed attention to the Carter Family tune "When I'm Gone" occurred after several covers performed a cappella with a cup used to provide percussion, as in the cup game and dubbed the Cups song, went viral and culminated with a short performance in the movie Pitch Perfect. Afterwards it was released as a single by Anna Kendrick.
In 2017, the Carter Family's story was told in the award-winning documentary series American Epic.[16] The film featured unseen film footage of The Carter Family performing and being interviewed,[17][18] and radically improved restorations of their 1920s recordings.[19][20] Director Bernard MacMahon commented that "we first came to the Carters through their records, but one of the other things that struck us about them is that they were involved in both of the main waves of America hearing itself for the first time. They made their first impact in that early wave of rural recordings, and then the next stage was the arrival of radio, and in the late 1930s, they went to Texas and were on XERA, a border station based in Mexico that could be heard all over the central and western United States."[21] The Carter Family's story was profiled in the accompanying book, American Epic: The First Time America Heard Itself.[22]
Selected 78 rpm records: The Carter Family's career predated any sort of best-selling chart of country music records. (Billboard did not have a country best sellers chart until 1944.) Below is a select list of their 78 rpm releases.
↑ Heatley, Michael (2007). The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. London: Star Fire. ISBN978-1-84451-996-5.
↑ Zwonitzer, M. & Hirshberg, C. (2002). Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music. New York: Simon & Schuster.
↑ ["The Carter Sisters & Mother Maybelle: Living Tradition", in The Journal of the Academy for the Preservation of Old-Time Country Music]
↑ Sunny Side Sentinel: Official Publication for the Carter Family, Discography Issue (1980)
↑ Maybelle Carter, Bill Clifton. Wildwood Pickin' (audio CD). Vanguard Records. ASINB000000EHH.
↑ Carter 1978, p.1115 (Conference on HIRE, June 14).
↑ Wolfe, Charles K.; Olson, Ted (2005). The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. p.74. ISBN0-7864-1945-8.
↑ Wolfe, Charles. "Carter Family". Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Archived from the original on August 7, 2011. Retrieved April 29, 2013.
Among My Klediments, June Carter Cash, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 1979. ISBN0-310-38170-3
In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music, Nicholas Dawidoff, Vintage Books, 1998. ISBN0-375-70082-X
Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music, Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2002
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Carter Family.
Valerie June Carter Cash was an American country singer and songwriter. A five-time Grammy award-winner, she was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. Prior to her marriage to Cash, she was known as June Carter and continued to be credited as such even after her marriage. She played guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp, and acted in several films and television shows. Carter Cash won five Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter was an American musician and a founding member of the Carter Family, one of the most notable acts in the history of country music.
Sara Elizabeth Carter was an American country music musician, singer, and songwriter. Remembered mostly for her deep, distinctive, mature singing voice, she was the lead singer on most of the recordings of the historic Carter Family act in the 1920s and 1930s. In her earliest recordings her voice was pitched very high.
"Mother" Maybelle Carter was an American country musician and "among the first" to use the Carter scratch, with which she "helped to turn the guitar into a lead instrument." It was named after her. She was a member of the original Carter Family act from the late 1920s until the early 1940s and a member of the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle group.
Helen Myrl Carter Jones was an American country music singer. The eldest daughter of Maybelle Carter, she performed with her mother and her younger sisters, June Carter and Anita Carter, as a member of The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle, a pioneering all female country and folk music group. After the death of A.P. Carter in 1960, the group became known as The Carter Family.
Ina Anita Carter was an American singer who played upright bass, guitar, and autoharp. She performed with her sisters, Helen and June, and her mother, Maybelle, initially under the name The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle. Carter had three top ten hits as well as other charting singles. She was the first to record the songs "Blue Boy" and "Ring of Fire". Carter was also a songwriter, most notably co-writing the Johnny Cash hit "Rosanna's Going Wild."
Wildwood Flower is the fourth and final album from June Carter Cash. It was released in 2003 on the Dualtone record label, four months after her death and only a few days before the death of Johnny Cash, who provides backing vocals, making this the final release of his lifetime. It was produced by their son, John Carter Cash. The album's opening track, "Keep on the Sunny Side," was a Carter Family anthem that June Carter Cash had previously recorded twice with Johnny Cash: for the 1964 Carter Family album of the same title, and for the 1974 Johnny Cash album The Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me. "The Road to Kaintuck," written by June, had previously been recorded by her husband on several occasions for Columbia Records. The medley of "Church in the Wildwood"/"Lonesome Valley" had been a regular part of Johnny Cash concerts in the 1970s.
The Carter Sisters, were an American band Each playing an instrument with June being a pioneer as a front-man or "person" consisting of Maybelle Carter and her daughters June Carter Cash, Helen Carter, and Anita Carter. Formed during World War II, the group recorded and performed into the 1990s. Maybelle and Ezra named the band "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle" and recorded under that title for 2 record labels RCA and Columbia. Maybelle wanted her daughters to be the face of the band.
Carter Family picking, also known as the thumb brush, the Carter lick, the church lick, or the Carter scratch, is a style of fingerstyle guitar named after Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family. It is a distinctive style of rhythm guitar in which the melody is played on the bass strings, usually low E, A, and D while rhythm strumming continues above, on the treble strings, G, B, and high E. This often occurs during the break. The style bears similarity to the frailing style of banjo playing and is the rhythm Bill Monroe adapted for bluegrass music two decades later.
Anchored in Love: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1927–1928) is a compilation of recordings made by American country music group the Carter Family, released in 1993. It is the first of nine compilations released by Rounder Records of the group's Victor recordings.
My Clinch Mountain Home: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1928–1929) is a compilation of recordings made by American country music group the Carter Family, released in 1993. It is the second of nine compilations released by Rounder Records of the group's Victor recordings.
When the Roses Bloom in Dixieland: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1929–1930) is a compilation of recordings made by American country music group the Carter Family, released in 1995. It is the third of nine compilations released by Rounder Records of the group's Victor recordings. The original Carter Family group consisting of Alvin Pleasant "A.P." Delaney Carter, his wife Sara Dougherty Carter, and his sister-in-law Maybelle Addington Carter recorded many of what would become their signature songs for Victor Records.
Worried Man Blues: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1930) is a compilation of recordings made by American country music group the Carter Family, released in 1995. It is the fourth of nine compilations released by Rounder Records of the group's Victor recordings.
Give Me the Roses While I Live: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1932–1933) is a compilation of recordings made by American country music group the Carter Family, released in 1997. It is the sixth of nine compilations released by Rounder Records of the group's Victor recordings. The original Carter Family group consisting of Alvin Pleasant "A.P." Delaney Carter, his wife Sara Dougherty Carter, and his sister-in-law Maybelle Addington Carter recorded many of what would become their signature songs for Victor Records.
Last Sessions: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934–1941) is a compilation of recordings made by American country music group the Carter Family, released in 1998. It is the final of nine compilations released by Rounder Records of the group's Victor recordings. The original Carter Family group consisting of Alvin Pleasant "A.P." Delaney Carter, his wife Sara Dougherty Carter, and his sister-in-law Maybelle Addington Carter recorded many of what would become their signature songs for Victor Records.
Single Girl, Married Girl is a folk song made famous by The Carter Family, about the differences in lifestyle between the two title characters.
This is a discography of the Carter Family—Sara Carter, her husband A.P. Carter, and their sister-in-law Maybelle Carter—often cited as "the most influential group in country music history":
Ezra J. Carter was a member of the Carter Family of Virginia. Ezra Carter managed the Carter Family, a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. He was the husband of Maybelle Addington Carter (1909–1978), brother of Alvin Pleasant "A.P." Delaney Carter (1891–1960) and father of Helen Carter (1927–1998), June Carter (1929–2003) and Anita Carter (1933–1999).
American Epic: The Best of The Carter Family is a compilation of Carter Family songs recorded between 1927 and 1933 and released in 2017 to accompany the award-winning American Epic documentary film series. The album was released as a 15-track download and a vinyl LP.
Laura Weber White, also known as Laura White, Laura Weber, Laura Cash, and Laura Weber Cash is an American country fiddler, singer, songwriter, and guitar player. White has worked as a session musician on many albums and toured with several artists, including the late Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. She has released two solo albums: Among My Souvenirs in 2003 and Awake But Dreaming in 2010. Both were recorded at the Cash Cabin Studio. White became known as a fine stage fiddler after winning both state and National Fiddler contests in Oregon and Idaho. She is an artist on 16 Cash family albums from 2003 to 2014.
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