The Carter Family

The Carter Family, A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter of southwest Virginia, recorded hundreds of old songs from 1927 onward and became the first family of country music. Their repertoire is still the backbone of old-time and bluegrass singing.

History

On 1 August 1927 the trio drove from Maces Spring, Virginia, to Bristol, Tennessee, to record for Victor's Ralph Peer in what became known as the Bristol sessions, the day before Jimmie Rodgers made his first Victor recordings. By the end of 1930 they had sold 300,000 records in the US.

From 1938 to 1941 the family broadcast twice a day on the powerful border station XERA in Villa Acuña, Mexico, across from Del Rio, Texas, reaching listeners across North America. The original group disbanded in the 1940s, and Maybelle went on performing with her daughters Helen, June and Anita as the Carter Sisters. June later married Johnny Cash.

The Carter scratch

Maybelle Carter's guitar style, the "Carter scratch", plays the melody on the low strings with the thumb while the fingers brush the higher strings for rhythm. It became one of the most copied guitar styles in American music.

Songs to know

• "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" (Grammy Hall of Fame, 1998)
• "Wildwood Flower" (Grammy Hall of Fame, 1999)
• "Keep on the Sunny Side" (Grammy Hall of Fame, 2006)
• "Wabash Cannonball", "Worried Man Blues" and "Single Girl, Married Girl"

Legacy

The Carter Family was the first group elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1970. They entered the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2001 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. Their songs passed into the repertoire of later players such as Doc Watson, whose "Keep on the Sunny Side" comes from the Carter songbook.

Explore more of the old-time tradition.