Carter Family

File:Carter Family.jpg

Maybelle, A.P. and Sara, the original Carter Family.

The Carter Family was a country music group that performed and recorded between 1927 and 1943. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, southern gospel, pop and rock musicians, as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s.

The original group consisted of Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter (A.P.; 1891-1960), his wife, Sara Dougherty Carter (autoharp and guitar; 1898-1979), and Maybelle Addington Carter (guitar; 1909-1978). Maybelle was married to A.P.'s brother Ezra (Eck) Carter. All three were born and raised in southwestern Virginia where they were immersed in the tight harmonies of mountain gospel music and shape note singing. Maybelle's distinctive and innovative guitar playing style became a hallmark of the group.

History

The Carters got their start on July 31, 1927, when A.P. convinced Sara and Maybelle (pregnant at the time) to make the journey from Maces Springs, Virginia, to Bristol, Tennessee, to audition for record producer Ralph Peer who was seeking new talent for the relatively embryonic recording industry. They received $50 for each song they recorded.

File:Carter- Family.jpg

The Carter Family's album cover reflects the family's roots in West Virginia.

In the fall of 1927, the Victor recording company released a double-sided 78 rpm record of the group performing "Wandering Boy" and "Poor Orphan Child". In 1928, another record was released with "The Storms Are on the Ocean" and "Single Girl, Married Girl". This record became very popular.

On May 27, 1928, Peer had the group travel to Camden, New Jersey, where they recorded many of what would become their signature songs, including: "Keep on the Sunny Side," "Little Darling, Pal of Mine," "Wildwood Flower," and"John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man." The group did not receive any money immediately for this effort but left with a contract that assured a small royalty for sales of their records and sheet music. "Wildwood Flower" in both vocal and instrumental forms has endured as a signature tune for traditional country and bluegrass artists.

During a February 1929 session they recorded, among others: "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes," "My Clinch Mountain Home," and "Little Moses."

By the end of 1930 they had sold 300,000 records in the USA.

In the following years, A.P. travelled throughout the southwestern Virginia area in search of new songs. He collected hundreds of British/Appalachian folk songs and, many of which might have been lost to future generations without his effort. The Carters themselves would eventually record more than 300 sides themselves. Besides those mentioned above, these included such standards as: "Worried Man Blues," "Wabash Cannonball," and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."

During his travels in the early 1930s, A.P. befriended Lesley "Esley" Riddle, a black guitar player from Kingsport, Tennessee. Esley later accompanied A.P. on his song collecting trips. Riddle's blues guitar playing style influenced the Carters, especially Maybelle, who learned new guitar techniques from watching him play.

In June 1931, the Carters did a recording session in Nashville, Tennessee along with country legend, Jimmie Rodgers. In 1933, Maybelle met The Cook Family Singers at the World's Fair in Chicago and fell in love with their signature sound.[1] She asked them to tour with the Carter Family.

In the winter of 1938-1939, the Carter Family travelled to Texas, where they had a twice-daily program on the border radio station XERA (later XERF) in Villa Acuña (now Ciudad Acuña), Mexico, across the border from Del Rio, Texas. In the 1939/1940 season, June Carter (middle daughter of Ezra Carter and Maybelle Carter) joined the group, which was now in San Antonio, Texas, where the programs were pre-recorded and distributed to multiple border radio stations. In Fall 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 6:15 a.m.

In 1943 the group disbanded after Sara moved permanently to California.

Later Careers and Legacy

File:Carter-June.jpg

June Carter with Anita, Helen, and Mother Maybelle.

Maybelle continued to perform with her daughters Anita, June, Helen as "Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters" into the 1960s. A.P., Sara, and their children — Joe and Janette — recorded some material in the 1950s. Maybelle and Sara briefly reunited and toured in the 1960s, during the height of folk music's popularity. Anita and June would go on to have their own careers as solo performers. June later married country start Johnny Cash with whom she toured and had several successful albums.

Revivalist folksingers, during the 1960s, performed much of the material the Carters had collected or written. For example, on her early Vanguard albums, folk performer Joan Baez sang: "Wildwood Flower," "Little Moses," "Engine 143," "Little Darling, Pal of Mine," and "Gospel Ship."

Several Carter melodies were also used to create new songs of note. "Wayworn Traveller" was covered by a young Bob Dylan, who wrote his own words to the melody and named it "Paths Of Victory." (This recording is featured on "Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3.") More significantly, Dylan again used the same melody and changed the time signature to 3/4 in creating possibly his most famous song, "The Times They Are a-Changing." Earlier, Dylan's idol Woody Guthrie had used the melody of the Carters' "When This World's on Fire" to created "This Land Is Your Land." He also used their "John Hardy" melody for his song "Tom Joad," memoralizing John Steinbeck's Dust Bowl novel, "Grapes of Wrath."

Marybelle's influence

Almost as important to country music as the family's repertoire of songs was Maybelle's guitar playing. She developed her innovative guitar technique, today widely known as the "Carter-picking." Before the Carter family's recordings, the guitar was rarely used as a lead or solo instrument. Maybelle's interweaving of a melodic line on the bass strings with intermittent rhythmic strums is now a staple of country, folk, and bluegrass guitar technique. Virtuoso Flatpickers such as Doc Watson, the late Clarence White and Norman Blake all acknowledge Maybelle's playing at the root of their styles.

Awards

The Carters were elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970 and were given the nickname "The First Family of Country Music." In 1988, the Carter Family was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and received the Grammy Hall of Fame Ward for the song "Can the Circle Be Unbroken." In 1993, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring A.P., Sara, and Maybelle]]. In 2001, the group was in inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor. In 2005, the Caters received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Carr, Patrick. The Illustrated History of Country Music, Three Rivers Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0812924558
• Cash, Johnny. The Original Carter Family: with a biography by Johnny Cash. Hal Leonard Corporation, 1999. ISBN 978-0634003813
• Cash, June Carter. Among my klediments. Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 1979. ISBN 0-310-38170-3
• Dawidoff, Nicholas. In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music. Vintage Books, 1998. ISBN 0-375-70082-X
• Zwonitzer, Mark, and Charles Hirshberg. Will you miss me when I'm gone? — the Carter Family and their legacy in American music. Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN 978-0743243827

External links

• Country Music's First Family. National Public Radio. Retrieved June 7, 2007.
• Songs of the Carter Family. Bluegrasslyrics.com. Retrieved June 7, 2007
• Townsend, Carl Thomas.Rhythmic Asymmetry in the Music of the Carter family. Indiana University. Retrieved June 7, 2007

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