As a member of the first family of country music, Maybelle Carter (1909–78) distinguished herself far beyond her role as accompanist to her brother-in-law A.P. Carter and his wife Sara (Maybelle’s cousin) in the Carter Family, the first recording stars of country music. Maybelle was born Maybelle Addington in Nickelsville, Virginia. In 1926 she married Ezra J. ...
(Alto saxophone, arranger, trumpet, vocals, 1907–2003) One of the great arrangers and soloists in jazz history, Bennett Lester Carter wrote some of the first big-band music to fully realize the flowing, legato ensemble of the coming swing movement. His saxophone ensembles were smooth projections of his solo style. ‘Lonesome Nights’ and ‘Symphony In Riffs’ were ...
(Bass, piccolo bass, b. 1937) A consummately professional bassist, Ron Carter possesses a distinctive tone and phenomenal dexterity that place him at the upper level of jazz rhythmists. In the early 1960s Carter joined drummer Chico Hamilton’s popular quintet, then worked with Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, Thelonious Monk, Cannonball Adderley and Art Farmer. From ...
(Various saxophones, b. 1969) A musical prodigy from Detroit’s Creative Arts Collective, saxophonist James Carter toured Europe at the age of 16, worked with Wynton Marsalis and starred in Julius Hemphill’s saxophone opera Long Tongues. Since 1990, his New York ensemble has recorded a variety of ‘quiet storm’ romantic jazz, Django Reinhardt-style gypsy jazz, hard-core ...
(Violin, b. 1966) Violinist Regina Carter has stabilized her instrument’s precarious role in jazz after advanced work in classical, jazz-pop and experimental formats. From childhood Suzuki lessons (a method of teaching music that stresses listening over reading skills), she joined the Detroit-based band Straight Ahead, then the String Trio of New York. She was a featured soloist in ...
The Carters (A. P. 1891–1960, Sara 1899–1979 and Maybelle 1909–78) are the most extensive clan in country music, encompassing three generations of performers and connections by marriage to other artists. This is fitting, for their musical influence is pervasive, too. Near the dawn of country music as a commercial entity, they were its first successful family ...
(Vocals, 1904–96) Carter, the son of a Baptist minister, was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, and in his youth worked as a rodeo performer in Canada’s western provinces, as well as singing on radio shows. Recording for RCA Records for 50 years, Carter was central to the popularity of cowboy music in the 1930s ...
(Vocals, b. 1955) Born Rebecca Carlene Smith, the daughter of June Carter and Carl Smith, she worked on The Johnny Cash Show and with The Carter Family after her mother married Cash. During the first half of the 1990s, she returned to country music, after a period in the rock world and early albums with Dave ...
1908–2012 American composer An early relationship with Charles Ives (1874–1954) and a period of study with Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979) led to a synthesis of European modernism and American ultra-modernism, which can be heard in the String Quartet No. 1 (1950–51). By the second quartet (1959), Carter was following an entirely different style: the four string players are instructed to sit ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1915–56) The Carter Family was the first vocal group to become country music stars. Consisting of A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and their sister-in-law Maybelle, The Carter Family’s simple harmonies and unique guitar-based arrangements supplanted the bluegrass-oriented ‘hillbilly’ music of rural America. The family’s sound gave new life to British and Appalachian traditionals and made ...
From its roots, country music has been associated with simplicity – in melody, in subject-matter and in instrumentation, and it is this that has perhaps ensured its longevity. However, all good musicians make their craft look simple, and the history of country music is packed with virtuosos, from the pioneering banjoist Earl Scruggs, through ...
With his work as a studio player and as a prolific solo and guest artist, Larry Carlton (b. 1948) has long been known as a guitarist’s guitarist. Carlton has won three Grammys for his performances and compositions. Carlton started learning to play guitar when he was six years old. He warmed to jazz in high school and was influenced by ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1960s–present) The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band began as a jug-band revival group in Los Angeles, but evolved into a band that took traditional country music very seriously – so seriously that it organized Will The Circle Be Unbroken – the 1972 album that introduced Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, Doc Watson and Maybelle Carter to the ...
In terms of influences and origins, country and rock’n’roll draw so closely from the same antecedents that they are practically musical first cousins: branches from the same tree that share the same basic instrumentation of guitar, bass and drums. Two of country music’s greatest practitioners, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, launched their careers in the mid-1950s ...
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band started out in 1966 as a student jug band in Los Angeles, and in an early incarnation it included a teenage Jackson Browne. Among the group’s founder members was singer and guitarist Jeff Hanna. Both Hanna and multi-instrumentalist Jimmie Fadden are still Dirt Band members 40 years on. The extremely ambitious Will The Circle Be ...
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