It is likely that no group in the history of country music had a wider influence during
its time or since, than The Carter Family. One of the groups recorded by Ralph Peer d
uring his historic ten-day recording session in Bristol, Virginia in 1927, the Carters
, along with Jimmie Rodgers, became the first nationwide stars in the world of country
music. Some of the great classics of American folk music, songs like "Wildwood Flower
," "Little Darling Pal of Mine," "John Hardy" and scores more, got their definitive
treatment in the hands and voices of this family trio (husband/wife A. P. and Sara
and Sara's cousin Maybelle) from rural southwestern Virginia. Their vast repertoire
(either written by A.P. or adapted by him from older songs), sweet family harmonies,
and especially Maybelle's distinctive guitar style became a blueprint from which
country/folk artists continue to derive inspiration to this day.
The Carter Family's 1927 records became immediate hits, and for the next 10 years the
Carters performed across the south. Presenting a clean, wholesome image (Their
advertisements claimed, "This Program is Morally Good"), the Carter Family mixed
reworkings of traditional fok songs, original compositions, and religious standards
into an extremely successful performance style. In 1938 they moved to Del Rio, Texas
to begin regular broadcasts over radio station XERA, which could be heard across much
of the US. In 1941 they moved back to North Carolina, where they continued to record and make radio broadcasts. Later that year A.P. and Sara decided they wanted to retire. "Mother" Maybelle, aided by her daughters, continued performing and would go on to enjoy one of the longest unbroken careers in the history of America's music industry, performing professionally until her death in 1978.
The Carter Family left behind a priceless treasury of some three hundred recorded songs
, many of which remain in the basic repertoire of players of old-time country music all
over the world. A.P. and Sara's children Joe and Jeanette carry on the Carter family
tradition through performances and festivals at the Carter Family Fold in Southwest
Virginia.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon began her work as a socially conscious artist in the early
60s, during the Albany, GA, civil rights movement. A co-founder of the SNCC (Student
Non-violent Coordinating Committee) Freedom Singers, Johnson was frequently arrested
and jailed while fighting on the front lines of the Civil Rights Struggle. With the
Freedom Singers, she brought the music of the Civil Rights Movement both to southern
battlefronts and to northern concert halls. The Freedom Singers took the songs and
styles of African American music in the south and adapted them to their own needs with
new lyrics reflecting the struggles of the civil rights movement. Dr. Johnson Reagon
continued this process with the formation of the all-woman ensemble Sweet Honey in the
Rock, in 1973.
Sweet Honey In The Rock has for thirty years used the powerful forms of African
American folk music to battle against all types of oppression and to celebrate the
beauty and strength of African-American musical traditions. In 1993, Dr. Johnson
Reagon published We Who Believe in Freedom - Sweet Honey In The Rock Still On The
Journey (1993), a book chronicling the career of this extraordinary group.
In addition to her awesome musical skills, Dr Johnson Reagon is a highly regarded
scholar with a PhD from Howard University. She is Distinguished Professor of History
at the American University and Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution,
National Museum of American History, where she produced "Wade In The Water," a major
National Public Radio series on the history of African-American song and worship
traditions.
Dr. Johnson Reagon has also been a consultant, composer and performer for several film
and video projects, including the award-winning "Eyes on the Prize" series, the Emmy
award-winning "We Shall Overcome," and "Roots of Resistance: A Story of the Underground
Railroad," all produced for PBS. Her many publications include: "We Who Believe in
Freedom: Sweet Honey In The Rock; Still On The Journey" (Anchor Books), "We'll
Understand It Better Bye and Bye: Pioneering African-American Gospel Composers"
(Smithsonian Press), and the landmark documentary anthology "Voices of the Civil
Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960 -1965."
In her work and in her art, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon has spoken and sung with a
powerful voice lifted up in the service of the rich traditions of African-American
culture. A 1989 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Reagon was also awarded the
Presidential Medal and the 1995 Charles Frankel Prize for outstanding contribution to
public understanding of the humanities, by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In 1996, Reagon received an Isadora Duncan award for the score to Rock, a ballet
directed by Alonzo King for LINES Contemporary Ballet Company.
Anne And Frank Warner
Alan Lomax called Anne And Frank Warner's life's work, "a continuous act of unpaid, tender devotion." During their long careers as folk song collectors they were responsible for the preservation of over a thousand songs which might otherwise have been lost. The Warners chose to focus on geographical areas ignored or underserved by other collecters and, as a result, collected a store of rare songs from the eastern United States.
Devoting all of their spare time to recording traditional singers in the field, the Warners did most of their pioneering work in the musically fertile areas of the Southern Appalachians, the North Carolina Outer Banks, Tidewater Virginia, New England, and upstate New York. Their enthusiasm and their dedicated pursuit of traditional songs brought a number of obscure songs and performers to the attention of the American public, among them North Carolina's Frank Proffitt, source of "Tom Dooley." The Warners, on their many "song-catching trips" which began in the 1930s, also discovered and popularized a number of songs which have entered the American mainstream including "He's Got The Whole World in His Hands" and "The Days of '49." Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne & Frank Warner Collection, a generous selection of material from their archive, was published to wide acclaim by Syracuse University Press in 1984. Appleseed records has published two compact discs containing material drawn from the Warners' field recordings.
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