Film Clip
Will The Circle Be Unbroken, The Carter Family. PBS
I have reviewed the various CD’d put out by the Carter Family elsewhere in this space. Many of the thoughts expressed there apply here, as well. The recent, now somewhat eclipsed, renewed interest in the mountain music of the 1920’s and 30’s highlighted in such films as The Song Catcher and Brother, Where Art Thou necessarily had to create a renewed interest in the Carter Family. I might add that the success of the Walk the Line about the relationship between the legendary Johnny Cash and one of the next generations of Carter’s, June expanded on that base.
What this PBS production has done, and done well, is put the music of the Carters in perspective as it relates to their time, their religious sentiments and their roots in the simple mountain lifestyle. I have mentioned elsewhere and it bears repeating here that this fundamentalist religious sentiment expressed throughout their work does not have that same razor-edged feel that we find with today’s evangelicals. They took their beating during the Scopes Trial era and turned inward. Fair enough. That thy also produced some very simple and interesting music is the product of that withdrawal.
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