Though the connection may be a bit tricky to hear, a deep line runs directly from the music of the Carter Family straight to the country music of today. The genre has become known for the anthems it produces, songs with which we can all identify. Take a hummable tune, add lyrics that captures the truth of experience, and a classic song is born.
Country music has had plenty of them. From a vulnerable Patsy Cline singing “I Fall To Pieces” to Loretta Lynn telling her husband “Don’t Come Home a’Drinkin’ with Lovin’ On Your Mind,” life is laid out in a way to which we can all sing along. But the woman who set the stage for it all was one who let her musicianship speak, and that brings us back to the Carter Family, specifically Mother Maybelle.
I think the term we use today to compliment her is “badass.” When she traveled with her cousin Sara, and Sara’s husband A.P. to make those first recordings, Maybelle was only 18 years old. By then, she had developed a guitar style so musically interesting that players ever since have been trying to figure out how she did it.
Photo: Guitar Great, Maybelle Carter.
The melodies sound deceptively simple. Maybelle picked out the tune on the lower strings while keeping a rock steady rhythm. On “Wildwood Flower,” a Carter Family staple, the fingerpicking and chord strumming pattern works so fluidly and is so logically practical, it is a real treat to play, if you can make it work. I’ve tried. It’s no little feat.
Maybelle Addington Carter mixed techniques she heard as a child with her own unique talent. Since the Carter Family were among the first to put that music on record for the masses to hear, her work is credited with influencing generations of pickers who came after. In fact, over the course of Maybelle’s career, she mastered several techniques, the first of which has come to be known as the “Carter Scratch.” In essence, she took the guitar from strumming accompaniment to a lead instrument that could do it all.
For as long as the Carters performed, Maybelle provided a driving melody and bass line that established many of their songs as classics. After the band quietly broke up, Maybelle brought her daughters to the microphone and continued as the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle. All three, Helen, June and Anita, went on to solo careers. June’s marriage to Johnny Cash thrust Maybelle’s middle daughter into an even larger spotlight in the 1960s.
In those years, country music largely passed Maybelle by. She worked part-time as a nurse in Nashville, thinking no one was interested in her talent. However, when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band came to record with the legends for their seminal work, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” they sought out Mother Maybelle. She came to play and her contribution remains a highlight of the three album set.
Since her passing in 1978, Maybelle Carter has been recognized for her amazing talent. In 2023, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked the greatest guitarists of all time. She came in at number 17, the highest of any country player on the list.
If you doubt it, go find a Carter Family song and discover the genius of Maybelle.
