hypersongs

The Carter Family

The Virginia trio of A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter, recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, whose 1935 "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" became a country and folk standard.

Poor Valley and Bristol

The Original Carter Family came from the Clinch Mountains of southwestern Virginia, around Maces Spring, Copper Creek and Nickelsville, near Hiltons in Scott County. A. P. Carter sang bass and collected and arranged songs, Sara Carter sang lead and played autoharp and rhythm guitar, and Maybelle, Sara's cousin, sang harmony and played lead guitar in the thumb-lead style known as the Carter scratch. Their repertoire was mostly sacred songs, folk songs and ballads about home, family, religion and hope. Maybelle won first prize at a banjo contest at Copper Creek at twelve.

In August 1927 they recorded at the Bristol Sessions, which ran from July 25 to August 5 on the third floor of the Taylor-Christian Hat and Glove Company on State Street in Bristol, for Ralph Peer of Victor. Peer said they looked like hillbillies but as soon as I heard Sara's voice, that was it. On August 1 they cut "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow", "Little Log Cabin by the Sea", "The Poor Orphan Child" and "The Storms Are on the Ocean", and on August 2 "Single Girl, Married Girl" and "The Wandering Boy", at $50 cash a side. The first record, "The Poor Orphan Child" and "The Wandering Boy", came out on November 4, 1927. By the end of 1930 they had sold about 300,000 records in the US. Jimmie Rodgers recorded for Peer in the same sessions, which some call the Big Bang of modern country music.

Radio and legacy

In the early 1930s A.P. befriended Lesley Riddle, a Black guitarist from Kingsport, Tennessee, who accompanied him on song-collecting trips. They broadcast on the Mexican border station XERA from 1938 to 1941, and the group disbanded around 1943; Wikipedia says 1944 and a teaching guide 1941. Maybelle went on as Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, joined the Grand Ole Opry on May 29, 1950, toured with Johnny Cash, and took part in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972). A. P. died on November 7, 1960, aged 68, Sara on January 8, 1979, aged 80, and Maybelle in October 1978; the date is October 22 by PBS and October 23 by Wikipedia.

They were the first group inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1970, entered the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2001, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2005 and a US postage stamp in 1993. PBS's American Experience made The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken (2005), narrated by Robert Duvall; Kathy Conkwright said their songs and style remain the most copied in American folk and country music. The Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia, founded by Janette Carter in 1974, still hosts weekend concerts, and Johnny Cash gave his last public performance there in July 2003.

Albums

Songs

  • Will the Circle Be Unbroken Can the Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye) · 1935

    A. P. Carter's reworking of a 1907 hymn, the narrator's mother's funeral set to the hymn's chorus.

Sources

  1. Carter Family, Wikipedia
  2. Bristol Sessions, Wikipedia
  3. The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken, PBS American Experience
  4. Carter Family heritage, Carter Family Fold