1929 - 2003
June Carter Cash
Keep on the Sunny Side: June Carter Cash-- Her Life in Music
[Legacy/Columbia; 2005]
Rating: 7.7
DISC 1
1. Keep On The Sunny Side - (with The Original Carter Family)
2. Oh! Susannah
3. Root Hog Or Die - (with Mother Maybelle & The Carter Sisters)
4. Baby It's Cold Outside - (with Homer & Jethro)
5. Country Girl - (with Homer & Jethro)
6. Foggy Mountain Top - (with Mother Maybelle & The Carter Sisters)
7. Fair And Tender Ladies - (with Mother Maybelle & The Carter Sisters)
8. He's Solid Gone - (with Mother Maybelle & The Carter Sisters)
9. Juke Box Blues
10. No Swallering Place
11. Love Oh Crazy Love - (with Carl Smith)
12. He Went Slipping Around - (with The Carter Sisters)
13. Well I Guess I Told You Off - (with The Carter Sisters)
14. Strange Woman
15. Heel
16. How Did You Get Away From Me
17. Tall Loverman
18. Without A Love To Call My Own
19. Ring Of Fire - (with The Carter Family)
20. Keep On The Sunnyside - (with The Carter Family/Johnny Cash)
DISC 2
1. Jackson - (with Johnny Cash)
2. If I Were A Carpenter - (with Johnny Cash)
3. Loving Gift, The - (with Johnny Cash)
4. Good Man, A
5. Ole Slewfoot
6. Losing You
7. Shadow Of A Lady, The
8. Gatsby's Restaurant
9. Once Before I Die - (with Jerry Hensley)
10. L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore
11. East Virginia Blues
12. Gone
13. Appalachian Pride
14. I Love You Sweetheart
15. Another Broken Hearted Girl
16. Song To John
17. Far Side Banks Of Jordan - (with Johnny Cash)
18. Diamonds In The Rough - (with Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
19. Will The Circle Be Unbroken
20. Keep On The Sunnyside
Full title: Keep On The Sunny Side: June Carter Cash, Her Life In Music.
Personnel: June Carter Cash (vocals, guitar); Mother Maybelle Carter (vocals, guitar, autoharp); Homer & Jethro (vocals, guitar, mandolin); Johnny Cash (vocals, guitar); The Carter Sisters, Jerry Hensley, Carl Smith (vocals); Earl Scruggs (guitar); The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Friends.
Liner Note Authors: Elvis Costello; Holly George-Warren.
The first anthology to focus exclusively on June Carter Cash's decades-spanning career, 2005's KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE offers up 40 of her finest moments. Born into the legendary Carter Family, June took to playing folk and country tunes on autoharp and guitar, as well as singing in a distinctive, high-pitched voice. Later, her earthy beauty, bold personality, and good-natured humor would lead to success as a comedienne and, eventually, gain the attention of then-troubled Johnny Cash. While bringing Cash stability before and during their marriage was one of her greatest achievements, June also crafted an impressive song catalog, both with and without Cash and other members of the Carter Family. Highlights here include the uplifting title track (which appears in three different versions), and "Jackson," a raucous duet with Cash that became a virtual theme song for the couple. Though June may have been overshadowed by her more-famous relatives, this collection proves that she was a compelling performer in her own right.
June Carter Cash's first-ever retrospective is subtitled Her Life in Music, and rightly so. June began singing with the Carter Family at age 9, when the precocious child was harmonizing on the family signature song, "Keep on the Sunny Side", and taking a solo with "Oh Susannah" (which she pronounces with an extra syllable-- "oh Susie Anna"). The first disc in this two-disc set focuses on her early career, with songs performed by the Carter Family and the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle alongside solo tracks and duets. As much as it tracks the various lineups that played barn-dances around Appalachia during the 1930s and 1940s, this disc traces June's growing confidence as a singer and comedienne. That confidence is evident on tracks like "I Guess I Told You Off" and "Baby It's Cold Outside", with Homer & Jethro, and grows through later songs like "Strange Woman" and "Without a Love to Call My Own".
Admittedly, many of these songs are mere trifles-- short entertainments full of virtuoso picking from her mother and sisters and lots of cornpone humor from June. This is no criticism: These songs are apt showcases for June's gracious wit and robust vocals, and their primary purpose was to rouse all-ages audiences, which makes them part country music, part vaudeville. Heard outside their original live context, these songs lose something essential but still sound complex and amusing, so we can only imagine the impact they had on their original listeners.
June's third husband joins the Carter Family on the first disc's final track, a full version of "Keep on the Sunny Side", although Johnny's presence is hinted at on the previous track, "Ring of Fire", performed by the Carter Family. Gone are the mariachi horns and the gravity of Johnny's vocals; in this earlier version, a simple drum taps out a two-step rhythm and a chorale of voices testifies to the overwhelming risks of love like a church choir singing a hymn to God-- thankful, yet awed.
According to the second disk of Keep On the Sunny Side, June and Johnny's inevitable collaboration didn't initially pay off. "Jackson" still sounds like a barnstormer, but its complex view of a cooling marriage offsets the sentimentality of their duets on Tim Hardin's worst song, "If I Were a Carpenter", and Kris Kristofferson's "The Loving Gift"-- both of which suggest that a woman's ultimate act of love is procreation. Johnny also pops up in the jokey "Slewfoot", which, coming so soon after their duets, seems to be exploiting their very public relationship. But really, it's just another vaudeville song like "Baby, It's Cold Outside", only this time performed in the studio instead of on the stage.
That distinction is important. Despite its overbearing production, the studio material on the second disk isn't necessarily inferior to her earlier live songs, but it does afford her far fewer opportunities to showcase her outsize personality. Often she inhabits characters-- like the reformed harlot in "The Shadow of a Lady" or the woeful gunman in "East Virginia Blues"-- but never with the liveliness and commitment with which she played Aunt Polly or Little Junie. June needed an audience, her autoharp, and a few agile pickers and fiddlers. But she had her moments in the studio, such as the duet with her husband on "Far Banks of the River Jordan", which proves eerily prophetic. And the final three tracks, taken from the last few years of her life, reveal a gritty authority in her aged voice. Keep On the Sunny Side ends with yet another version of the title track, recorded in 2001. At 73 June sings those lyrics with the same determined pluck as she did at 9, revealing an artist whose hopefulness proved as solid and indefatigable as her voice.
June Carter Cash singer, songwriter, actress,
author and the daughter, wife, mother and Stepmother
of some of the brightest stars in the country music firmament -- died
Thursday (May 15) at 5:04
p.m.
Valerie June Carter was born June
23, 1929, in Maces
Springs, Va.,
to Ezra J. and Maybelle Addington Carter. Two years earlier, Maybelle --
with her cousin Sara and Sara's husband, A.P. -- had joined several other
acts in the Virginia-Tennessee border town of Bristol
to make a series of recordings that would launch country music as a
distinct commercial art form.
Taught by her mother to play
autoharp, Carter gave her first public performance in 1937 along with her
sisters, Helen and Anita, on a
June
At five years Old Maces Springs Virginia - School Picture
In 1952, Carter married fellow
Grand Ole Opry star Carl Smith, who was then one of the hottest young acts
in country music. Their daughter, Rebecca Carlene, was born in 1955. She
would later achieve fame as Carlene Carter and
gain her greatest prominence as a solo country artist in the early 1990s.
June Carter and Smith divorced in the late 1950s. She then married Rip
Nix, a union that produced another daughter, Rosie.
Apart from performing with her
mother and sisters, Carter also took time out in the 1950s to study acting
at Actor's Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse in
The Carters joined Johnny
Cash’s road show in 1961. Cash had a No. 1 hit in 1963 with "Ring
of Fire," a song Carter co-wrote with Merle Kilgore. In 1967, Carter
and Cash scored their first duet hit, "Jackson."
It went to No. 2 on the country charts and won them a Grammy. They
followed "Jackson
a few months later with "Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man," which
climbed to No. 6. The two singers married in 1968. The next year, they won
the Country Music Association award for vocal group of the year. Their
1970 recording of "If I Were a Carpenter" rose to No. 2 on the
charts and earned them another Grammy. That same year, their son, John
Carter Cash, was born.
One
of her last public appearances was on April 7 in Nashville at the CMT
Flameworthy 2003 Music Awards
Carter penned two autobiographies
-- Among My Klediments, published in 1979, and From My Heart,
which came out in 1987. She released the solo album Press
On in 1999. Her first such project since Appalachian Pride in 1975,
Press On won her a Grammy for best traditional folk album. At the
time of her death, she was recording an album for Dualtone Records. She
and Cash performed together last September at the Americana Music Awards
in Nashville.
One of her last public appearances was on April 7 in Nashville
at the CMT Flameworthy 2003 Music Awards where she accepted a career
achievement award on behalf of her husband, who had recently returned home
after being hospitalized for pneumonia. She underwent surgery on May 7 to
replace a heart valve.
June Carter Cash is
survived by her husband, Johnny, daughters Carlene Carter and Rosie, son
John Carter Cash, and step-daughters Rosanne Tara, Kathy and Cindy.
Johnny
Cash & June Carter Cash At Their Home In Hendersonville TN.
From The Heart 
I wanted to
call this book Out of my mind at one point – because some of the things
you’ll read about here tell about my hurt, confusion, and despair with
life. As I search deeper into my mind, I also glean the joy the wonderful
“soaring “ of the heart as I lived my life from the lowest to the
fullest. God did hear my prayers and if reading this book will show you
how to strengthen your faith and learn to live thanking God for all things
good and bad, then I’ve chosen to share some of my inner most secret
happenings and thoughts with you. Steel is strong because of the hammer
and the fire.
I face today,
giving God the credit for reminding me how much I love my husband, my
family and friends I could have lost you all.
Be a new
friend of mine, if you care, these stories are truly from the heart.
My Love And Prayers June Carter
Cash
Wildwood
Flower
Released
Date September 9, 2003
- In Stores Now !
Track
List
-
Keep
On The Sunnyside
-
Road
To Kentuck (With Johnny Cash
-
Keening
Drunkard Olea ( (Carter Girls Intro)
-
Storms
On The Ocean
-
Temptation
-
Big
Yellow Peaches
-
Alcatraz
-
Sinking
In The Lonsome Sea
-
Church
In The Wildwood / Lonesome Valley
-
Cannonball
Blues
-
Will
You Miss Me When I'm Gone
-
Anchored
In Love
-
Wildwood
Flower
Wildwood
Flower's
liner notes are reason enough to recommend the final recording by June
Carter Cash, who died unexpectedly from complications of heart surgery in
April. Penned by stepdaughter and songwriter Rosanne Cash, they eulogize
Carter Cash as a uniquely talented and loving mother and musician who for
nearly forty years nurtured the heart, art and stormy soul of one of
country music's most storied performers. And though she was an
accomplished Autoharpist, writer of both songs and books, and a descendant
of country music's first family, Carter Cash will probably be best
remembered as the wife of Johnny Cash -- something Rosanne doesn't think
she'd mind one bit. "If being a wife were a corporation, June would
have been the CEO. It was her most treasured role," she writes.
"My daddy has lost his dearest companion, his musical counterpart,
his soul mate and best friend."
Yet
Wildwood Flower shows us how much country music -- as a culture, a
musical tradition, a lifestyle, even -- lost with Carter Cash's passing.
Recorded over a six-month period, from late 2002 to March of this year,
the album is an uncanny musical memorial to a life shaped equally by music
and family -- two forces that, for Carter Cash, were inextricably linked
from birth to death. Wildwood Flower abounds in world-wizened
visions of songs she performed thousands of times over the past six
decades -- first at age eight with the Carter Family, later with fellow
Carter Sisters Helen and Anita, then as a solo artist. Most of the tunes
were penned by uncle A.P. Carter -- including "Keep on the Sunny
Side," "Storms Are on the Ocean" and "Sinking in the
Ocean." But Carter Cash's individual spirit colors them all. The
intro to "Big Yellow Peaches," the sole Carter Cash composition
included here, is a humorous riff on Lee Marvin that suggests the wit and
fearlessness of the woman who co-wrote "Ring of Fire" and once
asked prisoners at Folsom Prison to look at her face, not her chest, while
she performed. ("I talk with my lips," she is reported to have
said.)
Wildwood
Flower
is as roughly rendered and scratchy as a historic photograph. Produced by
son John Carter Cash, the album eschews smooth production in favor of
familial intimacy. Some of the songs, including the spare, spooky
"Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone," were taped in June and
Johnny's bedroom in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Cameos by members of the
ever-sprawling Carter/ Cash lineage -- including daughters Rosanne and
Carlene Carter, granddaughter Tiffany Anastasia Lowe and, of course,
Johnny, who sings backup on almost every track -- lend the album the
casual feel of a living-room concert hedged in between Bible readings and
bedtime. Backed throughout by Norman and Nancy Blake, who share duties on
acoustic guitar, mandolin and cello, Carter Cash carries her years in her
voice: It's craggy and often flat, but utterly sincere from the first note
to the last. Carter Cash is gone, but Wildwood Flower helps
ensure that the circle, indeed, remains intact.
Laura
Cash's Latest CD - Among My Souvenirs
Track
List
- Silver Bells
- Seasons Of My Heart
- Pick Me Up On Your Way Down
- Among My Souvenirs
- I Still Miss Someone ( Duet
With Johnny Cash )
- Lord Hold My Hand
- Touch My Heart
- This Heart Of Mine
- It’s Sweet To Be Remembered
- Beanmant Rag
- Cold Cold Heart
- Maiden's Prayer
Bitter
Tears John Carter Cash
Track
List
-
Mongolian
King
-
Crumblin
Rock
-
Remain
Calm
-
Sinking
In The Lonesome Sea
-
Carmen
-
Loch
Ness Monster
-
Only
A Dream
-
Bitter
Harvest
-
Mongolian
King ( Slight Reprise )(Feat Joseph Cash )
-
Fire
On The Isle Of St August / Jamaica
-
Blame
It On Me
-
The
Way-Worn Traveler ( Duet With Johnny Cash
) (Bonus Track )
August 11, 2003 June
Cater Cash
June Carter Cash’s Last Recordings Filmed for Documentary
The recording sessions that produced June Carter Cash’s last album, Wildwood
Flower, were filmed last September at the Carter Family estate in Virginia.
Portions of the film appear on the enhanced CD, but the entire footage is
now being edited for a TV special. A spokeswoman for Dualtone Records,
Carter Cash’s last label, says that the A&E channel has shown an
early interest, but that other outlets are also being looked into.
June 21,2003
Johnny Cash delivers
surprise performance
Over the weekend,
Johnny Cash made his first public performance since his wife, June Carter
Cash, died in May.
He made a surprise
appearance at The Carter Fold, a venue in Hiltons, Va., near June's
birthplace of Maces Springs.
''I don't know hardly
what to say tonight about being up here without her,'' the Kingsport
(Tenn.) Times-News reported Cash told the crowd.
''The pain is so
severe there is no way of describing it. It's the biggest … losing your
mate. I guarantee it is the big one. It really hurts.''
Johnny got standing
ovations for each song performed, including huge hits Folsom Prison Blues,
Ring of Fire and I Walk the Line.
''It's been a
pleasure,'' Johnny said near concert's end.
''It's been a painful
experience … but a healing thing to come back here to this wonderful
place with you. (June) loved this valley and all these people and all you
people. I wish I could share it more, how we felt about each other.''
Johnny Pays Tribute To
June Carter
Johnny Cash paid
tribute to his late wife, June Carter who died in may, with a special
appearance at the Carter Fold in Hiltons VA. Johnny took the stage
andperformed six songs, including "I Walk The Line " and
"Ring Of Fire" holding his guitar (Inset) instead of playing it.
Before began "Angel Band" Johnny Addressed June's spirit. Baby I
know You're here Tonight, he said very quietly
Ties Kept The Man In
Black Alive
September 29, 2003
There’s a heartbreaking, yet
inspiring, photo inside the new June Cater Cash CD, “Wildwood flower”
released only days before her husband, Johnny Cash Died. June and Johnny
sit on a sofa during what they must know will be their last recording
session together. They quietly lean on each other, as it there’s no one
else. They look old and tired. Their deeply lined faces are shadows of
what they were. While June, who died in May smiles reflectively, here
husband’s eyes are hollow, seemingly facing the inevitable. Their
incredible partnership, both professionally and personally, is coming to
an end. They can do nothing but hold on to each other.
October 25 2003
Daughter Of June
Carter Cash Found Dead
Rosey Nix Adams
1958 - 2003
June
Carter Cash Daughter's Death Ruled Accidental
The
45-year-old daughter of June Carter Cash was found dead near Nashville on
Oct. 24. Mystery surrounds the death of Rosey Nix Adams. Found dead with
her in a bus near Clarksville, Tenn., was a well-known musician. Jimmy
Campbell, 40, had been Bill Monroe's fiddle player and worked with other
bluegrass ensembles, including Jim and Jesse and The Sidemen. No cause of
death has been reported, although officials speculated that carbon
monoxide may have been a factor. The Montgomery County sheriff's
department said the bodies were discovered by Adams' husband, Philip
Adams. Results of
autopsies on the bodies were expected over the weekend. Rosey Nix Adams
was the daughter from June Carter Cash's second marriage, to Nashville
police officer Edwin "Rip" Nix. 10/25/03
Funeral services are scheduled
for Adams and Campbell on Wednesday (Oct. 29). Adams' service is set for
11 a.m. at the Hendersonville Funeral Home with burial at Hendersonville
Memory Gardens. Campbell's service is set for 2 p.m. at Nashville's West
Harpeth Funeral Home.
Adams was the daughter of Carter Cash and her second husband, Nashville
police officer Edwin "Rip" Nix. Her siblings in the Carter-Cash
family are Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy, Tara, John Carter and Carlene. Adams
often sang with her mother and was a background vocalist on her 1999 album
Press On
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