The Carter Family

The Original Carter Family playing and singing group was made up of three people, A.P. Sara, and Maybelle. The style of the Carters was comprised of two parts which blended to make the total effect first, the intricate use of the guitar as a lead instrument ( which was an innovation at time of their beginning), and second, the vocal harmonies.

Alvin Pleasant Delaney “Doc” Carter the oldest of eight children, was born to Robert and Molly Bays Carter on December 15, 1891, A.P.’s father was a banjo player and he met his future wife, Molly, at a square dance. After their marriage, he gave up the instrument, as he gave up many worldly ways because of his religious views. Often times mountain musicians, upon conversion would began playing religious music only, but in case of A.P.’s father, he gave up the banjo altogether.

For her part, Molly Carter brought into the family many old ballads down that had been handed down for years and years, songs like SAILOR BOY, and SINKING IN THE LONESOME SEA which the Carter Family would later record.

Maybelle Carter purchased this 1928 Gibson L-5

Video: Carter Family Mother Maybelle & Sara Carter 1970

A.P. Carter spent a year in Indiana working on a railroad gang near Richmond. A soldier of fortune and a jack of all trades, he often traveled far and wide seeking his fortune. He made his home wherever he found it, but his heart was really on Clinch Mountain Virginia. He returned to his mountain home in 1911 and began selling fruit trees for a living, but during his years away from the hills of Virginia, A.P. had begun writing songs about his life as he knew it back at his Clinch Mountain Home.

On one of his many trips around area selling fruit trees, he met Sara Dougherty, born July 18, 1898, According to the family legend, she was singing ENGINE ONE FORTY THREE and playing the autoharp at the time they met. Although A.P. and Sara had known one another earlier, the autoharp meeting flowered into the beginning of a courtship, and later into marriage on June 18, 1915, almost from the beginning they made music around their household at Maces Springs, Virginia.

Sara Had learned to play the autoharp from EB Easterland and purchased her instrument from one of the mail order companies, the autoharp was a very popular instrument of the day. A.P. played the fiddle, as he continued to do throughout his life, although every time he apologized for his lack of ability. During the early years of their marriage, A.P. and Sara sang and played in home groups and at churches. To supplement his income as a nurseryman, A.P. farmed and did blacksmith work and carpentry.

A.P. and Sara Carter were a striking couple both of them tall, strong, thoroughbred looking mountain stock. A.P. Carter was said to have had a personal magnetism that was remarkable. His presence filed the room, someone once said. He was a kind, gentle person, but full of fire when angered. Sara was a strikingly beautiful woman, a proud lady with head erect and shoulders straight, and with eyes that

The early recording of the Carter family – Maybelle with cousin Sara and Sara’s husband A.P. launched a musical revolution. as Don Everly told Life magazine “the Carter Family took country music from the front porch to the radio. Maybelle’s then-revolutionary guitar style helped transform the instrument from background rhythm to the dominant lead sound in pop culture, “wrote the authors of finding her voice the saga of women in country music, “Sara and Maybelle were essentially a duet with occasional bass vocals from A.P. and were thus the foundation female act of country music history. On Oct 23, 1978 long praised as one of America’s living musical treasures, Maybelle passed on at the age of 69 of respiratory complications and Parkinson’s disease. When Maybelle’s guitar went on display at the Country Music Hall Of Fame and Museum in 1998, CMF Director Kyle young said, “The Maybelle Carter guitar is arguably the most important artifact related to our music. People here describing it as the Holy Grail or Ark of the Covenant. It’s important as a beautiful instrument on it’s own, but its role in changing and shaping country music is immeasurable.

The Carter Family had always been in demand for personal appearances, but now, with the release of a phonograph record that was being played on the radio, their fame spread like wildfire and they were in demand all over Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and south Carolina. More recording followed. The recording sold very well, so in May 1928, the Carter Family was asked to come to Camden, New Jersey, the recording center for Victor Company at the time. They recorded eleven songs and again in February of the following year, 1929, they return to Camden for another recording session and recorded twelve more songs. Those sessions in Camden in 1928 and 1929 were probably their strongest sessions, because in those sessions they recorded songs such as (DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH ) ( WILDWOOD FLOWER ) and ( THE FOGGY MOUNTAIN TOP).