The Carters’ Country Collection

“They didn’t know it, of course, but their (1927 recordings) would change American music,” Charles Wolfe says of the Carter Family, whose body of work stands as one of the cornerstones of country music.

Wolfe’s detailed and entertaining liner notes add greatly to the appeal of Rounder Records’ valuable nine-volume series of Carter Family recordings, the first two of which have just been released.

Titled “Anchored in Love,” volume one covers the years 1927 and 1928 and includes such country standards as “Keep on the Sunny Side” and “Wildwood Flower.” Volume two is titled “My Cinch Mountain Home” and includes country classics “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” and “Foggy Mountain Top.”

These and subsequent Carter Family recordings are characterized by winning vocal harmonies, a spirited instrumental style and a rich sense of folk songwriting tradition. The recordings were hugely popular in their time and did much to define early country music. The Carter name is carried on today in the music of Maybelle Carter’s daughter June Carter Cash, and her daughter, singer-songwriter Carlene Carter.

The remarkable thing about the original Carter Family, in light of their enormous impact, was how accidental their musical career appeared.

As told by Wolfe, A.P. Carter’s big love was music, but his main involvement through his mid-30s was singing with his wife, Sara, at churches and social gatherings in southwest Virginia. He supported himself by farming, selling fruit trees and working at sawmills in the region.

But Carter finally acted in early 1927 on his dream of making records by traveling with Sara to Norton, Va., where they tried out for Brunswick Records. Things didn’t go well, largely, Wolfe feels, because the emphasis at the session was on Carter’s “uncertain skills” as a fiddler, not the couple’s singing.

When Carter heard a few months later that music executive Ralph Peer was going to hold auditions in nearby Bristol, Tenn., he gathered Sara and his sister-in-law Maybelle Carter and tried once again for a contract.

It’s a wonder they made it to Bristol. Wolfe says the weather was so hot that July day that the patches A.P. used to repair flat tires melted off the tubes almost as fast as he could put them on.

Peer was impressed. The first tracks from the session were released the following November by Victor and the response was strong enough that Peer invited the Carters to New York for another session.

It was in New York that “Keep on the Sunny Side” and “Wildwood Flower” were recorded--and the Carters’ place in country music history was assured. The remaining volumes will be released individually over the next 18 months.