Robert Bennett discusses the Carter Family...

The first time I heard the Carter Family was on Catfish’s neat introduction to early Folk and Blues, “Roots of Johnny Cash”. “Wabash Cannonball” and “Keep on the Sunny Side” sounded like impressively delicate, controlled music but were immediately overshadowed for me by the deeply mysterious tones of Lead Belly.

Listening more carefully to a collection of their early recordings a few years later the songs began to sound more enigmatic and moving with every play. As with much enduringly great music, the process is gradual. When you first hear The Carter Family, especially if you’ve been on the emotional roller-coaster ride of a Hank Williams record, you may wonder exactly what sentiments are being expressed in these songs. What is initially striking is the professionalism of the musicianship, the intricacy of the guitar-playing and the careful interplay of harmonies. These are highly wrought compositions and the overall sound is nimble, upbeat and playful. It’s far from the slashing, angry guitar of a Son House. And while Sara Carter’s voice has a beautifully strong and pure quality it isn’t imbued with the vivid emotion we’ve come to expect from Country singers. In fact, as with Cash’s Sun Recordings, there is distinct detachment. Nothing is given away easily in the music of The Carter Family. It’s a puzzle that demands attention. But when you persevere with the sound and consider the lyrics, trying to overcome the seeming incongruousness of the two, you can build a picture of the world these songs inhabited. A lost terrain opens up in which the consolations of tradition and religious faith are pitted against hounding poverty, loss and despair so deep that the control or restraint seems increasingly wonderful and necessary.

A.P Carter, his wife Sara and sister in law Maybelle were all born in the Clinch Mountains of Southwest Virginia and raised as musicians. A.P was taught to play old-time songs on a fiddle by his mother and became a member of a Gospel quartet while Sara’s family had passed the autoharp, banjo and guitar on to her. The couple worked various jobs while performing at local parties and gatherings before Maybelle, the guitarist that carries their sound, joined and the group was discovered by Victor Records in 1927.

From 1928 to 1935, through the personal turmoil of a failing relationship and the economic disaster of the Great Depression The Carter Family brought the esoteric music of the Mountains to the American public at large. By the end of 1930 they had sold 300,000 records. Without these records it is hard to speculate what Country and more generally, American Pop would have sounded like. Their legacy was passed on by Woody Guthrie and then Dylan as they adapted the songs for their own use. But is it possible that the Carter recipe was a mixed reflection of music that never really made it onto record?  Certainly memories are the most recurring and potent theme here. Memories not only of lost love but also of missing family and of a twilight world slipping away under modernity. Listening to the spiritual, “Can’t Feel At Home” the impression is of communities and bonds that have been permanently broken by the Depression and removal to the Cities. It sounds as though life for the protagonist is already finished and total resignation has set in, “This world is not my home. I’m just passing through. My treasures and my hopes are all beyond the blue. Where many friends and kindred have gone on before. And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”
Other songs such as the distinctly ghostly, “Mid The Green Fields Of Virginia” explicitly describe what has been lost, “There’s a peaceful cottage there. A happy home so dear. My heart is longing for them day by day.”

As their fame increased and demand for material grew, A.P travelled the Appalachian Mountains hunting out old-time music to add to the repertoire. Tellingly, when The Carter Family moved to ARC Records in 1935 they began to re-record their most successful songs. The most influential group in Country music history, they may well also have been archivists, saving music that had never been intended for a wide audience and was already vanishing into the past.

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