Sara & Maybelle Carter

Sara & Maybelle Carter | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 27, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Bear Family
• ASIN: B000001AW6
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,185 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Higher Ground

2. Lonesome Pine Special

3. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

4. Goin' Home

5. The Ship That Never Returned

6. Three Little Strangers

7. Sun of the Soul

8. Weary Prodigal Son

9. While the Band Is Playing Dixie

10. Farther On

11. No More Goodbyes

12. Happiest Days of All

13. Charlie Brooks

14. I Told Them What You're Fighting For

15. We All Miss You Joe

16. San Antonio Rose

17. Mama's Irish Jig

18. Black Mountain Rag

19. Let's Be Lovers Again

20. Give Me Your Love and I'll Give You Mine

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This renowned reunion of Sara and Maybelle Carter (with Sara's ex-husband A.P.'s son Joe filling in on guitar and bass vocals) marked the finest recording made by members of the Carter Family since their 1944 dissolution. Recorded in the mid '60s for Columbia, the disc ranges from sanctified "holiness songs" to proverb-inspired traditionals, white-blues-type songs, and even an anti-Vietnam tune written by Tom T. Hall, "I Told Them What You're Fighting For." The typically detailed liner notes by scholar Charles K. Wolfe denote the diverse sources for each tune on the disc. Sara was 69 and sister-in-law Maybelle 59 when this album was made, but their hands were still nimble on the autoharp and guitar. Their voices are weathered and not always able to hit every note, yet they are still capable of true beauty--perhaps made all the more potent because of the ragged, inexact quality. Note: 11 of the 24 tracks on this import appear on the domestically issued An Historic Reunion: Sara and Maybelle: The Original Carters. --Mike McGonigal

Product Description

Far more important than the Eagles getting back together was the 1966 reunion of Sara and Maybelle Carter. They had split up in 1944, and their reunion was midwifed by Johnny Cash. If anything, the advancing years had made them sound better. They did a lot of old Carter Family songs like The Ship That Never Returned, Sun Of The Soul, Weary Prodigal Son and Happiest Days Of All, and they did some songs that neither had recorded before, like Goin' Home and When The Band Is Playing Dixie. For CD reissue, this historic LP is rounded out with an additional master, plus a Maybelle Carter album from 1965 that saw her tackle a wide range of material from San Antonio Rose and Tom Cat's Kitten, to new songs by Tom T. Hall and Johnny Cash. Altogether, 24 pieces of music history plus a 20 page booklet. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Historic Reunion, December 9, 2005

By 

James Morris (Jackson Heights, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sara & Maybelle Carter (Audio CD)

I have cherished the primary tracks on this album, first on vinyl and then on CD, for years. I have an original vinyl copy of the Columbia issue "An Historic Reunion: Sara and Maybelle - The Original Carters" which I purchased from a rare record dealer in the late 1970's. Years later, I acquired this Bear Family import, which contains the "Reunion" tracks, plus a bonus track from the same 1966 session (Sara and Maybelle) plus all the songs from Mother Maybelle's 1965 Columbia album, A Living Legend.

Now this is what I call music.

For anyone who doesn't know, Sara and Maybelle Carter were two thirds of the original Carter Family. Together with Sara's first husband, A. P. (Alvin Pleasant) they made some of the very first country records. They were discovered on the same day and at the same amateur music audition as Jimmie Rodgers, long known as the Father of Country Music. I often say that if Jimmie was the father, then Sara and Maybelle were surely the mothers of early country music. They made their first records in 1927, when the recording industry was in its infancy. Their partnership lasted until about 1943, when they ceased recording completely. By performing and recording with her three daughters, June Helen and Anita, Maybelle kept the Cater Family name alive for many more years after the original trio broke up. In the original liner notes for the LP of An Historic Reunion, June's husband, Johnny Cash, says that, for him, the first time he met Mother Maybelle Carter was like meeting the Queen of England. Country royalty, indeed.

Many people find the vocal style of the original Carter Family somewhat jarring. Their sound is totally non-commercial, and the "arrangements" to their songs are minimal, stark and simple. Unlike commercial superstars, whose sound was molded by the demands of the record buying public, the Carter Family sang pretty much they way the did the first time A. P. heard Sara singing on her family's porch in the mountains of Virginia. Theirs is a professional, but not polished, sound. But the sound is true, original and home-grown, and the charm and simplicity of their heartfelt vocals were both consistent and sincere.

The reissue of these tracks are exciting for folk and country music enthusiasts alike. I am always thrilled to hear anything by Mother Maybelle, and I suspect the presence of her character in the film "Walk the Line" will pique the curiosity of many about her life and music. The actress who plays Maybelle in the Johnny Cash biopic is positively spooky in her resemblance to the real Maybelle, and one colorful incident related in the film (there's a scene where Maybelle - shotgun in hand - and her husband chase a drug dealer from Johnny Cash's property) is sure to generate renewed public interest in her story.

But the music is the point, of course. Although I love the 1965 tracks by Mother Maybelle, let me point out a few highlights from the Sara and Maybelle session.

The album opens with a rousing gospel number, Higher Ground. Of course, country gospel is far more subdued than that of the African-American variety, but just as spirited, nonetheless. Higher Ground boasts a wonderful melody, but any melody that passes through Sara's guitar or Maybelle's autoharp has to come out sounding wonderful. Sara handles the lead vocal on this and all the other "Reunion" tracks, with Maybelle filling in harmony and background vocal as appropriate. "Lord, lift me up, and let me stand, my faith on Heaven's stable hand. A higher plain than I have found, Lord plant my feet on higher ground". Their simple, heartfelt sincerity will send chills though you with each guitar chord. Sara plucks her guitar with the famous Carter lick, a sound often imitated but never exceeded by anyone. And Maybelle plays her autoharp (Maybelle is credited with being the first musician to pick individual notes on the autoharp, rather than simply strumming the melody) with all the skill she showed in 1927, and then some. Sara and A. P.'s son, Joe also sings harmony on several tracks, "To fill in the gap left by his father". Another highlight is yet another favorite of mine, which the original Carter Family recorded in 1941, The Happiest Days of All.

But the standout of the album, for me, is a tune called "While the Band is Playing Dixie (I'm Humming Home Sweet Home)" an old-fashioned piece about a soldier dying in battle after penning a farewell letter to his sweetheart. It may sound hokey to some, but it gave me chills the first time I heard it, and it still gives me chills today. The songs borrows a device that Sara used on the Carter's original recording of The Homestead on the Farm (one of my favorite songs from the hundreds they recorded between 1927-1943). During the instrumental portion, Sara blends the melody to "Home Sweet Home" into the chorus of While the Band is Playing Dixie, so skillfully that you're almost unsure of where one starts and the other leaves off. Meanwhile, Maybelle's harmonizing on the chorus is absolutely breathtaking.

They found it in his pocket, a blood-stained little note
A bullet hole had pieced it through and through
It began with, "Darling Mary, if I don't come back again
Just remember that my last thoughts were of you".
While the band is playing Dixie, I'm humming Home Sweet Home
It takes me back to Georgia, though I'm far across the foam
Once again beside the river with my Mary dear I roam
While the band is playing Dixie, I'm humming Home Sweet Home
Be it ever so humble, no place like home...

And there's no sound quite like Sara and Maybelle, the original Carter's.

Highly recommended.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They don't make them like this anymore!!!, May 23, 2003

By 

Cory L. Schwent (Bloomsdale, MO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sara & Maybelle Carter (Audio CD)

Imagine if McCartney and Lennon would have recorded together in 1978 or if Buck Owens and Don Rich hooked up again, and you might have something close to being as important as these recordings. To be honest here, only the first 12 songs feature Sara Carter, the rest are from a Maybelle Carter solo Lp from 1966, but are equally important.

When you listen to these recordings, it is like a history lesson, a trip back in time and the voice of your youth all rolled into one making the most beautiful music you will ever hear.

The booklet is beautiful, featuring many photos of the under-publshed Sara.

All is good here. It is worth paying the import price.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy on the ears, August 10, 2005

By 

M. Fulgham (Vancouver, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sara & Maybelle Carter (Audio CD)

Wonderful listening! Amazing talent and to think that they were both self taught!