Maybelle Carter

Maybelle Carter (born May 10, 1909, near Nickelsville, Virginia, U.S.—died October 23, 1978, Nashville, Tennessee) was an American guitarist whose distinctive playing style and long influential career as a member of the pioneering Carter Family and the Carter Sisters (a band formed with her three daughters) mark her as a classic figure in country music.

Early life in Appalachia

By the time she was 12 years old, Maybelle Addington was well versed in the traditional hill-country songs of the Appalachian region and had become a skilled and original guitarist and autoharpist. When she was 17, she married E.J. Carter, and they moved to Poor Valley, Virginia. To great local acclaim, Maybelle Carter began performing with E.J.’s brother and sister-in-law—A.P. Carter and Sara Carter—at community gatherings and church events. To showcase her unique guitar-playing style—she picked out the melody on the bass strings while strumming the rhythm on the treble strings—the Carters accommodated their vocals to her bass lead. Maybelle’s innovative playing style would eventually be imitated by countless country and folk guitarists.

Performing with the Carter Family and the Carter Sisters

In 1927 the group won a contract with RCA Victor Records. Recordings and radio broadcasts brought the Carter Family (as they became known) fame throughout the country. The group stopped performing in 1943, but Maybelle Carter formed a new group with her daughters, June, Anita, and Helen Carter. From 1943 to 1948, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters were featured performers on the Richmond, Virginia, radio program Old Dominion Barn Dance. In 1950 they began performing on WSM’s Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and they soon became stars. Many of their recordings from the time, such as “Wabash Cannonball” and “Wildwood Flower,” are considered classics of country music. In the late 1950s the daughters stopped performing, but Carter remained with the Opry until 1967.

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A folk and country music legend

The folk revival of the late 1960s revitalized interest in the Carter Family, and Carter performed at the Newport Folk Festivals of 1963 and 1967. During the 1970s Carter continued to appear regularly on television on the Johnny Cash Show (her daughter June married Cash in 1968) and to perform to appreciative audiences across the country and in Europe.

Carter was one of the esteemed elder traditional country musicians who performed with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on the breakthrough crossover album Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1973), the title of which comes from the Carter Family’s 1935 hit “Can the Circle Be Unbroken.” In March 1974, after the Grand Ole Opry’s last broadcast at the storied Ryman Auditorium (before debuting at a new venue in Nashville), Maybelle Carter, Johnny Cash, and June Carter Cash were among those who joined in on a jamboree of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” (as the song was now called) onstage. By the 21st century the song had become the Opry’s anthem.

Honors

In 1970, in no small part owing to Maybelle Carter’s innovations, the Carter Family was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988. Among the Carter Family’s other honors are a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2005. The following year the U.S. Library of Congress added the 1928 version of “Wildwood Flower” to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”