Yesteryear In Nashville ~ Helen & Anita Carter (1983)

back to the beginning of the history of country music when ap Sara and Maybelle Carter made their first recording in 1927 although the original Carter family disbanded in 1943 they left a wealth of songs and the legacy of talent passed on from one generation to another Maybelle Carter a member of the original group went on to form a new Carter family composed of herself and her daughters Anita Helen and June they began working on various radio stations and in 1950 moved to Nashville to become regulars on the Grand Ole Opry along with the group came a young musician they had discovered along the way by the name of Chet Atkins the Carter family went on to perform during the 50s till Helen and Anita married and left the group and June struck out on her own with the advent of the folk era during the 60s Maybelle became a featured performer at folk festivals and college concerts and June and her husband Johnny Cash became stars of their own network TV show and during the early 70s the Carter family assembled once again to perform frequently on the show following Maybelle Carter's death in 1978 the group continued to perform with Johnny Cash's show and recently added new members a third generation of Carters and here's the Carter family as they appeared in 1965 [Applause] and a troubled there's a bright and sunny side so we meet with the doors fries so maybe [Music] I'd always done inside it will brighten our way it will be fun inside [Music] [Music] let us free with a song of hope each day though the mall might be cloudy or bare let us trust in our baby all way to keep everyone in his game keep on Sunnyside oh it's uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] it'd be fun [Music] that was the Carter Family Anita and Helen are with us today on yesteryear in Nashville to talk about the legendary Carter family now Anita and Helen as I've known for many many years Oh not too many called young aren't we right they are but I'm not up to now you guys were not with the original Carter family no no not at the start we we weren't born yet no our Mother Maybelle and AP and Sarah were the original members and they started there were just three people three people uh-huh and they played like my mother played the lead guitar you know like I'm wild flower and Aunt Sarah either played a rhythm guitar or she strummed the autoharp you know with the rhythm they didn't have a bass or anything like that but sometimes he just yes she ap just sort of sung a little bass whenever he felt like it and he had his very own style of doing that as we all know but he had a fiddle yeah and once in a while he'd go back and and you know pick it up and play two or three little notes on the fiddle and he well you just almost had to know him to really appreciate a pea he was something else yeah they weren't now that's the original family was only three miles people get a little mixed up because they do big records they had that they made in 1925 where are the three people three people and two instruments instruments and I still like it that way yeah it's nice your mother was maybe out of course uh-huh how was she related to AP and Sarah well ain't all that it's itay it's a little bit complicated unless you do know Sarah married ap Carter and my mother who was Sarah's cousin married a peas brother Ezra so that's how they all got to be Carters now how was the original Carter family discovered how did that happen well ap and Mama and and Aunt Sarah you know we've been kind of picking around area and they heard about a talent scout who was coming into Bristol and he was looking for talent to record and so they just got themselves together and went up to Bristol to see what they could find out and Mahmut was so green at that time she was 16 years old you know she said well should I take my guitar you know she didn't know so anyway they went with their little guitar in their autoharp and ended up recording and I think the day after they did their first recording Jimmie Rodgers did his first recording so it was quite a happening Helen oh wow why did the original Carter family break out well I I don't know I think I tell you Aunt Sarah and uncle IP you know we're married and back here several years before they had divorced and she later remarried and I I don't know where there were some problems but she never did love the business like mother love it you know she she would go and she would do the radio shows and that was fine and she'd go record but she didn't love that contact she didn't love that personal contact that mother did being out and being with an audience you know I can remember when mother started out with us that and so I'd say May when are you ever going to settle down and stay home like you shouldn't that was not for mother you know she enjoyed every minute and they broke up I think in 1940 43 they made their last recordings I think in 41 and I don't there was no real big problem but I think they're just kind of one went one way I'm one with the other and mother just said come on girls and here we go something now we've been talking about the original Carter Carter famine well part of the group that's formed later when was the group you were informed well we started singing together was in 1939 we first sang together mother was in Texas on the border stations doing some shows and Nita had gone out the year before a little bitty thing and sang with mother got me a job [Applause] yeah he asked mother said do you have any more daughters can sing and of course I was trying to play the guitar and sing and I sang something with a P and Sarah's daughter Jeanette and mother said well I've got one I know could sing but I don't know about that other one June had never shown any inclination to sing or anything except just have a good time she was always full of herself so mother came home I never will forget she came in and she said there girls you got to learn some songs we sing songs and we put Jun on the lead because she's never sang you shouldn't say any in need and I could sing harmonies so here's a little four-year-old peeping along with in harmony and I'm singing the low part and Jun is doing the lead and and we a mother got excuse me and mother got the autoharp out and she made she wrote the words of the songs out and then she put the keys above the words and she'd say now June when you see that you change and that's how Jun learned to play the autoharp we learned 15 songs and went to Texas and we got out there before we got back I think we knew about a hundred we had sunk for everything from make me won't God what is it oh no honey you know you know those those dollars me bad now be good yeah she sang that one but the one I'm thinking about show me the way to go home that was higher didn't go to go to bed oh maybe where to go oh that's a drum that's all years old I say Yankee Doodle really only thing with everything we didn't have all the songs been that we have now you know you know saying whatever was available alright Birmingham jail and yeah we really we're talking with Helen and Anita Carter a group of girls to be on the Opry I think but their head probably probably a complete unit with you zip you know like just that yeah well sorry and Sally yeah sound Sally with you know better than Minnie Pearl yeah Oh Minnie yeah but a group of just women that kind of played their own instruments and you know had kind of made it by themselves until they found that they really did need Chester you know and he was he helped us so much in learning the chords and and everything and and I hear is the Carter family back in 1962 [Music] [Music] if I was I'd say love it costs me [Music] Oh daemul [Music] there's something you can tell her way of trying to steal my [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I [Music] ha how would you describe each of your parts in the group now Maybelle was the leader and the rest of you had different parts for example you played accordion I played accordion and guitar and song the part that was left usually and June of course was the funny person and here's the vote I was the treble my voice and this was the one from the time she was that high when one of us hit a bad note we got pinched or a dirty look like you've done it again you know just let me out here can't hit a bad note I have always I think it's probably your fault that you haven't had the biggest hit record of all women singers and I think you just didn't put enough in it am I right or wrong well I'm sort of laid back you know I just like being a member of my family and I mean I love to sing don't misunderstand me a love singing and if I have a hit record that would make me very very happy and I appreciate the years that we've worked but it's not something that was just going to kill me if it didn't happen to me because I just kind of had enough of momma in me to just low get out there and do what you do you know and if it happens big great if not you don't have to worry about falling down you know what were some of your big records back in the 50s Oh 50s well I had a duet with Hank Snow that sowed like a million copies on Blue Bird Island and down the trail of aching hearts that was a pretty big record then I did one by myself called blue doll the family did barren tender ladies was a pretty good record for us back in that time now Maybelle was known as one of the finest and most creative instrumentalists of all time how about describing her innovative style of playing the autoharp and the guitar mother you know right Sara always just drummed the autoharp and mother was one of these people if she saw an instrument she was going to get something out of it some way so and we were just young girls I remember very young in fact and she started playing the outer heart and one day she was playing San Antonio rose on that thing and I could not believe what she was doing to that autoharp you know and I remember we worked to show I believe it was Louisville Kentucky with some peewee King that's where I found out I played my accordion upside down by the way I didn't know the difference country girl didn't know when wait a minute now wait a minute you were playing it upside down my daddy you just have to know our daddy really well you knew him so you know what a character he was but he brought he bowed instruments he bought the bass fiddle he bought accordion and he said all right girls got June at that time didn't play hardly anything she was too busy patting her foot and moving you know so she didn't pick up anything but I was fool enough to pick up that accordion and neither got the bass fiddle when she was on her like ten years old later ten years old and stood on a box to reach it but I put that accordion on upside down and went to work so we went on the bus by the way I remember riding the bus it was back in the early part of the war back during the war and when we got there peewee King looked at me and I was just playing away and I thought when I got it I thought was the Leeds on the left hand Helen this is funny and he said honey did you know you've got that thing on upside down I said are you kidding me he said no I said my word and you base notes and everything we're in I don't know why you didn't know now you grew up as children of recording artists now what was it like being a country star and at the time your mother was performing as part of the original Carter family you mean working with mother or sitting home and listening to it well both ways well I tell you you know I don't think we truly realized the size or the impact that mother and the old family had had on the world because when you're a child you know and grow up with something you don't appreciate it if but looking back now I would be trying to remember every little thing when people ask me these questions and it didn't dawn on me as I said she was merely mother who cooked the best meals and who made our clothes and who hung the washing on the line and she was everything does she wasn't just Mother Maybelle of course there's an entertainer she was was Fantasia travel Annie with her doing it Daisy thirties and fourties yeah we did we started going around with the old original family see we've traveled a little with them no neither though I got to go in the Florida is in the forties you know the early 40s very burger though then oh sure but I started working when I was a little bitty hope she was tiny but I traveled a lot with him I sang with a pea and Sarah's daughter son and I was terrified of it and I love the business so well but I was scared to death on the stage you know and four years after we all grew up and and melded into an act kindly you know you feel it and right to this day when I'm on the stage by myself I'm like I'm alone that's why you feel under it I don't know I won't thank your family around you together really do but traveling with them was something I remember one night uncle ap got us lost on white top mountain out of Bristol I was gonna ask you that now back in the thirties and forties you didn't have the expressways and oh and the rest you had to find your way on dirt roads even right it was a luxury Ford the creaks and knock on somebody's door and say hey how did we get up here to Buffalo school or something and that's what she played mostly well the only auditoriums available was schoolhouse SCU's courthouses ice cream suppers and you know just things like that but I tell you some of the greatest times in our life looking back I remember our first PA said my daddy was a real progressive man he went out and bought the first PA set for us when mother and jr. need and I will work and I'll never forget the horns the horns were you know the big horns that go on the car and if you've ever seen our home up in Virginia when mother this was during the time mother was in text and I remember daddy setting those horns up on side of the of the porch now no one much is aware of this but our daddy was a classical music lover and he loved the classics he knew all the things he took gave poor Valli their first cultural he's played Beethoven a Tampines and Mozart and through the horn through the horns on the front porch I said he was go get some coffee we'll be right back with Anita and Helen Carter after this pretty popular and on the college circuit back in the 60s how does she feel about that going Ollie you give some we worked like festivals of things like that you remember when mom did the thing with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that was circle B and we worked a lot of the festivals and to watch these young people and the way they treated our mother just made us feel so good because you could walk in and you'd see people everywhere it was just a sea of people and you could walk right through them and they would say that's that's Mother Maybelle you know and just so pleased but never reached out to to grab her or you know like sometimes they do they'll reach and grab you yeah they treated her with so much respect and they you could keep the crowd back with just like one little rope you know where you normally can't do that and but they would just come and just want to get close to her it's like it now it was just it was just beautiful the you know and she could not get over it the fact that those young people really loved her you know what do you feel was her greatest contribution to country music Mother Maybelle I think one of the things that she really proved is that a woman can get out there and make it just like a man as far as music is concerned if she's got the drive in the talent and motor had the talent but I think I really believed had my daddy she could not come out of por valley with us she would not have moved from poor Valley because she was that dedicated to her marriage and her children you know but he said now take it he said may take these kids and go on you've got your a show just go on like you are and she believed him and she she went that way and I believe that she and you know back in these before Chester went to work with us and even after he left us we traveled thousands and thousands of miles just for girls in the car we've been talking with Anita and Helen Carter join us again for yesteryear in Nashville [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] lily is somewhere and Bailey and I I ain't I will sing and I love jelly jar movement

Channel: Glenn Eric

Views: 161,086

Rating: 4.8907561 out of 5

Keywords: Yesteryear In Nashville, Country Music, Folk, The Carter Family, The Carter Sisters & Mother Maybelle, Anita Carter, June Carter Cash, Helen Carter, June Carter, Archie Campbell

Id: cK9I92fzTGg

Length: 22min 24sec (1344 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018