Track Listing

1. Wildwood Flower
2. Keep on the Sunny Side
3. Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow
4. Little Log Cabin by the Sea
5. Little Darlin' Pal of Mine
6. Anchored in Love
7. John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man
8. River of Jordan
9. Sweet Fern
10. My Clinch Mountain Home
11. I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes
12. Lulu Walls
13. Foggy Mountain Top
14. Carter's Blues
15. Wabash Cannonball
16. Jimmie Brown, the Newsboy
17. Cannonball
18. Worried Man Blues
19. Lonesome Valley
20. Lonesome Pine Special
21. I Never Will Marry
22. Can the Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye)
23. My Dixie Darling
24. Oh, Take Me Back
25. You Are My Flower

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144225 in Music
• Released on: 2000-08-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.com essential recording
While the Carter Family is certainly worthy of deeper exploration, this 25-song compilation provides a very useful overview of the work of one of country music's cornerstone artists. Beginning in the late 1920s, Sara, Maybelle, and A.P. Carter delivered to the rest of the world British and Irish ballads that had been preserved in remote Appalachian regions. By fusing the concept of hillbilly string music with the vocal harmonies of religious music and then attaching this fusion to these timeless songs, they helped give country music its foundation, both sonically and spiritually. As a result, many of these tunes have become distinctively American staples of popular music. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

An excellent primer on the first family of country music
This compilation features 25 of the Carter Family's classics taken from original 78's and were recorded in between 1927-1938. This collection actually sounds nice concerning the source material, age of recordings, etc and best of all, they are original recordings. Most of these tracks were originally released by RCA Victor, yet there are some later tracks on it as well and it features mainly their signature songs such as the title track, Keep on The Sunny Side, Worried Man Blues (later covered by the Kingston Trio as "A Worried Man"), Can The Circle Be Unbroken (later to be retitled "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" while Mother Maybelle recorded it on guitar originally, it's also worth checking out the re-recording that Maybelle play autoharp on which can be found on the Dirt Band original "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" album which is still in print and can be found right here or your local CD shop), My Dixie Darling, Wabash Cannonball, plus 2 tracks from the Bristol Sessions: Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow and Little Log Cabin By The Sea and many more. If you cannot afford the Bear Family box or the Rounder series or if you just want a nice sampler of their well known songs to enjoy while traveling, this is the best collection on the Carter Family to get and explains why they were inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970.

A good introduction to an influential family
In the twenties and thirties, country music was just beginning to assert its own identity separate from folk music but the Carter family's music was hugely influential in the development of both country and folk music in America. Not only has the music passed down the generations (tribute albums still appear at regular intervals) but the family has also produced June Carter, who was married for a time to country singer Carl Smith (father of Carlene Carter). More famously, June later married Johnny Cash (father of Rosanne Cash. So the family continues to exert an influence directly as well as via their old songs.

This compilation provides a good overview of their music, though you must allow for the age of the recordings. All the essentials are here including Wildwood flower, Keep on the sunny side, I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes (which uses the same tune as Great speckled bird, Wild side of life and It wasn't god who made honky tonk angels), Can the circle be unbroken (better known as Will the circle be unbroken), My Dixie darling (revived by Carlene Carter on her classic album, I fell in love), I never will marry (revived by Linda Ronstadt on her classic album, Simple dreams), Foggy mountain top and You are my flower.

As a basic introduction to the music of the Carter family, this works brilliantly. It doesn't do full justice to their music but boxed sets by JSP and Bear family serve that purpose.

The first Lead Guitarist
Everyone knows that the Carter Family is the First Family of Country Music, and they, of course, started it all. But, if you listen to the 25 songs here (75 minutes of material), you will soon realize that this is the intro of the Lead Guitar in modern music. Mother Maybelle's guitar runs and leads, are the center of every song in which they are included, and often tends to overwhelm the vocals. You have to ask yourself, just where did she get the idea to play the guitar this way? Any famous name that has carried a Martin, Fender, or Gibson, owes it all to Maybelle. The songs here are in mono, and carry the classic radio sound of "live-recording"; long before studios. It is apparent that this trio was destined to be the originators of America's music: A.P. was the chief songwriter/arranger; Sara was the vocalist, and Maybelle was the musician. These recordings are three-quarters of a century old, yet the basic delivery, and patterns are still found in today's American music. Regardless of your musical taste, this is a must-have album; especially for aspiring guitarists. My one criticism, is the lack of lag time beteween numbers..it's as if the record company (ASV Ltd, Eng) were determined to use as little space as possible, as the songs nearly blend into each other!