Search - The Carter Family :: In The Shadow Of Clinch Mountain

The Carter Family: A Cornerstone of American Popular Music

Ron Frankl | Hendersonville, NC | 11/07/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Carter Family has often been called the first family of country music, and no better argument for this claim can be made than this massive 12 CD set. Recorded for a variety of record companies between 1927 and 1941, this set includes all of the studio recordings made by the trio before they went their separate ways. The box set includes a 220 page, hardcover book that includes all known photographs of the Carters, as well as program notes, song lyrics, an essay from noted country music scholar Charles Wolfe, and a discography. For the uninitiated, the Carter Family were from the Clinch Mountain area of Virginia. The group consisted of leader A.P. Carter on backing vocals, wife Sara Dougherty Carter on lead vocals, guitar and autoharp, and Sara's cousin Maybelle Addington Carter on lead guitar and harmony vocals. When the Victor recording company placed adds in Virginia and Tennessee newspapers in the summer of 1927 for musical talent, dozens of local acts appeared and many were recorded. The Carter Family was chosen, as was the soon-to-be legendary Singing Brakeman, Jimmie Rodgers. These recording sessions, often called the Bristol (TN) Sessions, are cited by many as the birth of country music as we know it, incorporating old time string band and folk music with such later developments as blues, ragtime and jazz. Both the Carters and Rodgers went on to sell hundreds of thousands of 78 RPM records in the late twenties. The Carter Family traveled and performed widely, and their careers even survived the Great Depression. After recording dozens of sides for Victor, the Carters moved on to ARC, Decca and Bluebird. All of the music was memorable, and all of it is preserved here. The sound is rough in spots but better than any previous reissues. Only the Victor sides (about half of this compilation) have been reissued in their entirety, so this is the first CD reissue for many of these recordings. The Carter's mid-Thirties work is some of their finest, and its a pleasure to finally have all of these sides reissued.The Carter Family's music influenced many other musicians in the Thirties and Forties, and they continued to be a force in later decades as well. The folk revival of the Sixties so a particular renewal of interest, and as late as the 1970s Johnny Cash featured Maybelle Carter and her daughters (including Cash's wife, June Carter) in his recordings and stage shows. The German company, Bear Family Records, has done their usual excellent work in compiling this release. Sure, its expensive, and its a lot of music from a single act, but serious scholars of American music will consider this set essential. The Carter Family's legacy has never seemed greater than it does on this fine set."

THE HOLY GRAIL ?

Marc Lemmens | B-2870 PUURS Belgium | 10/17/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is it. A superb box-set. Bear-Family did it again ! A must for any ( Original ) Carter Family-fan."

Did anybody edit this otherwise fantastic collection?

Eric N. Hermann | 08/21/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It pains me to give a slightly negative review to such a great collection. But as someone who takes this music seriously, I can't believe how poorly this has been edited. There are innumerable discrepancies between the song notes in the book and the CDs: song names are different (e.g., "My Virginia Rose" becomes "My Virginia Rose is Blooming"), songs are located on different discs than they're supposed to be (e.g., "On a Hill Lone and Gray" and "The Cuban Soldier"--does this mean the songs did not appear in those recording session indicated in the notes, or are they just included on the wrong CD?), and by far the most troubling, some songs listed in the notes don't seem to be on the CDs at all (e.g., "What does the Deep Sea Say?", "Be Careful Boys, Don't go Too Far.")



I can handle a few typos, but this is shoddy and unacceptable (in an otherwise fantastic release). What happened to the missing songs above?



Obviously such mistakes make it problematic as a scholarly resource.

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