Carter Family

This article discusses the musical group; for a discussion of the Carter family itself, see Johnny Cash family.

Maybelle, A.P. and Sara

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.

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.

Second generation

Maybelle continued to perform with her daughters Anita, June, and 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.

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". It is also interesting to note that the Carter Family Song "Wayworn Traveller" was covered by a young Bob Dylan, who wrote his own words to the melody and naming it "Paths Of Victory". This recording is featured on "Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3". After writing that song, he wrote new words to the melody, and changed the time signature to 3/4, thus creating possibly his most famous song "The Times They Are a-Changin'". This became the second time an American folk singer used a Carter Family melody to create their most well known song, Woody Guthrie did it by turning "When This World's on Fire" to "This Land Is Your Land".

Legacy

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 style" of flatpicking. 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 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.

The Carters were elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970 and they 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 its Award 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 group received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Family tree

Template:Cash Carter Familytree

External links

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Among my klediments, June Carter Cash, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 1979. ISBN 0-310-38170-3
In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music, Nicholas Dawidoff, Vintage Books, 1998. ISBN 0-375-70082-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

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