Carter Family

Carter Family, singing group and country music founding family that was a leading force in the spread and popularization of the songs of the Appalachian Mountain region of the eastern United States. The group consisted of A.P. Carter; his wife, Sara Carter; and his sister-in-law Maybelle Carter.

The family’s recording career began in 1927 in response to an advertisement placed in a local newspaper by a talent scout for Victor Records. Over the next 16 years, with two of Sara’s children and three of Maybelle’s (Helen, June, and Anita) also appearing, they recorded more than 300 songs for various labels, covering a significant cross section of the mountain music repertory, including old ballads and humorous songs, sentimental pieces from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and many religious pieces. They later performed extensively on radio and popularized many songs that became standards of folk and country music; some of these were “Jimmy Brown, the Newsboy,” “Wabash Cannonball,” “It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song,” and “Wildwood Flower.”

The Carter Family was remarkable not only for its prolific recording but also for the musical accomplishment—and balance—of its members. A.P. was the group’s songsmith. He was an avid collector of oral tradition as well as an adept arranger of rural regional repertoire for consumption by a broader audience. A.P. composed many new songs for the group, replicating the style of the traditional material. Sara, with her strong alto voice, was typically the lead singer, supported by Maybelle’s harmonies and A.P.’s bass and baritone interjections. The instrumental anchor of the Carter Family was Maybelle, who was a skilled performer on guitar, banjo, and autoharp. She developed a unique finger-picking technique on guitar that continues to be emulated by many guitarists.

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In 1943 the Carter Family disbanded, and its members subsequently formed various other groups. Maybelle (“Mother”) Carter performed with her daughters, as a soloist, and later with her son-in-law Johnny Cash, whose gritty songs of social commentary had already propelled him to the top of the country-and-western music industry. In the 1950s the Carter Family re-formed and appeared intermittently, with a changing lineup. Later performing members of the extended family included Rosanne Cash, Carlene Carter, and John Carter Cash.

The original Carter Family was the first group admitted to the Country Music Hall of Fame (1970). The group’s 1935 hit “Can the Circle Be Unbroken,” which A.P. adapted from a 1907 hymn, became the Grand Ole Opry’s signature song, and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988. The family was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2001 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2005. The following year the U.S. Library of Congress added “Wildwood Flower” to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed  “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”