Hank Snow - Remembering Anita Carter
Hit Parade
DEATHS
Legend Anita Carter dies
Anita Carter By Jay Orr / Tennessean Staff Writer
Country music lost another member of its royal family yesterday with the death
of Anita Carter, 66, daughter of Carter Family matriarch Maybelle Carter and a
performer for many years with her mother and sisters, June and Helen.
Ms. Carter died at 4 p.m. at her home. Her sister, June Carter Cash, and her
brother-in-law, Johnny Cash, were with her. She had suffered for some time from
rheumatoid arthritis, but the cause of death was not immediately known, said
Lou Robin, Johnny Cash's manager.
"The Carters are to country music what the Kennedys are to politics," said
Middle Tennessee State University professor and country music historian Charles
Wolfe.
"It's a family dynasty, and every time we lose one of them it diminishes us.
Even though she had been sick for some time, it's still very sad to lose her."
Born Ina Anita Carter, March 31, 1933, in Maces Springs, Va., she was the
youngest of the Carter sisters but the first to begin singing with the
first-generation Carter Family group. She joined her mother, Maybelle, her
cousin, Sara Carter, and Sara's husband, A.P. Carter, in 1938 while they were
broadcasting on border radio stations in Texas.
Her sisters followed soon afterward. By 1943, Mother Maybelle and her daughters
had begun their own career, broadcasting over a radio station from Richmond,
Va. They later moved to the Tennessee Barn Dance in Knoxville, where Chet
Atkins joined them in 1949.
Anita Carter played stand-up bass and sang soprano in the group.
"She was one of the best singers that's ever been, I think, in Nashville or
anywhere," Atkins said last night. "She never had a great deal of luck as far
as hit records were concerned."
Ms. Carter's 1951 duets with Hank Snow -- Bluebird Island and Down the Trail of
Achin' Hearts -- did become Top 5 country hits, however.
"They were an unusual duet," Atkins said. "She had that real piercing,
beautiful voice, and he sang low, but it worked."
Helen adhered to a more traditional singing style, while June was willing to
experiment, Wolfe said. Anita was versatile, singing in several different
styles.
"She could do the old-time stuff, she did a couple of albums by herself and she
did duets with a number of different singers," Wolfe said. "She had a wonderful
voice and was extremely versatile and creative in her music."
Robin also was impressed with Ms. Carter's vocal ability when he met her in
1969.
"She was very underrated as a singer," he said. "With the voice she had she
could have gone to California or New York and rivaled even Barbra Streisand.
"There were certain people in the country music field who appreciated that,
such as Cliffie Stone and the folks at RCA, but she was loyal to her family.
She never left them. They sang with Johnny through the years and it was
wonderful what she contributed."
Mother Maybelle and the Carter Family became regular members of the Grand Ole
Opry in 1950. They toured with Elvis Presley in 1956 and 1957 and joined Johnny
Cash's touring show in 1961.
Ms. Carter was married twice, to music publishing executive and record producer
Don Davis and to Bob Wootton, a guitarist with Johnny Cash. Both marriages
ended in divorce.
"She was a real lady," said Atkins. "She didn't like to fool around with stars.
Hank Williams used to chase her around, and Elvis, people like that.
"But she loved jazz musicians. She loved the guys on the Opry who played great
fiddle and steel and so on."
So accomplished was Ms. Carter on stand-up bass that Atkins enlisted her to
play on what he regards as one of his best instrumental recordings, Main Street
Breakdown.
"She had a good ear," he said.
Helen Carter Jones died in June 1998. June Carter Cash, who turned 70 on June
23, is now the last surviving member of the second generation of the Carter
family.
"June was just trying to adjust to the loss of Helen, and now she's lost Anita,
too. It's the end of an era," Robin said.
Services for Anita Carter will be 2 p.m. Sunday at First Baptist Church,
Hendersonville. Survivors include a son, Jay Davis, and a daughter, Laurie
Bennett, both of Goodlettsville.