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On This Day
Associated Press
Happy Birthday, June Carter Cash
June 23, 2008
June Carter Cash spent her life surrounded by art and music. Her early career included touring across the country with the Carter family, studying theater, and performing on film and TV. June Carter put out three successful solo albums in her lifetime, and her relationship with country legend Johnny Cash produced several major hits, including “Ring of Fire,” which she wrote about their courtship, and the Grammy award-winning duets “Jackson” and “If I Were a Carpenter.”
Email ThisEarly Days
Valerie June Carter was born into a famous and influential American country music family. Her mother, Mary Maybelle Carter, sang and played guitar on many of the most popular country music songs of the 1920s. Valerie June’s father, Ezra Carter, was a farmer who moved the family from Virginia to Texas so they could play regularly on the radio. Beginning in 1943 the Carter women (June, her mother and two sisters) began touring America as country music performers. June emerged as the comedian of the group, developing an act she would use throughout her career.
Source: The New York Times
Notable Accomplishments
In addition to her musical career, June Carter Cash also pursued acting. She was performing at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 when director Elia Kazan saw her and encouraged her to study theater. June studied with Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, flying home to Tennessee on the weekends to perform with her mother and sisters. June Carter eventually starred in several films and TV shows, including the film “The Apostle” and the show “Gunsmoke.” Songs she wrote also appeared on a number of film soundtracks. The Internet Movie Database lists all of June Carter’s contributions to the big and small screen.
Source: IMDB
CMT (Country Music Television) publishes a June Carter Cash discography, with an option to purchase the listed albums.
Source: CMT
June Carter Cash had two previous husbands before marrying Johnny Cash. Her first husband, Carl Smith, was also a performer at the Grand Ole Opry; the two had a daughter, Rebecca Carlene. When that relationship ended, June married Rip Nix and had another daughter, Rosie. In 1964, June began making music with Johnny Cash, and the two fell in love, while both of them were married to other people. She wrote the song “Ring of Fire” to express the torment inspired by their budding romance.
Although June Carter Cash’s career ultimately thrived during her relationship with Johnny Cash, the marriage was not always easy. Johnny Cash struggled with drug addiction, as did other members of the Cash clan. In a 1990 interview with Garrick Utley for NBC, Johnny and June explain their feelings on drugs, the media and making music.
Source: Hulu.com [NBC]
The Rest of the Story
The recording sessions for June Carter Cash’s final album, “Wildwood Flower,” were a family endeavor: participants included Johnny Cash, June’s cousins, nieces, son, daughter, stepdaughter and daughter-in-law and the album was recorded in the old family house. June and Johnny’s son John Carter Cash described the recording process to NPR: “We just set up microphones in that living room. Felt enchanted and overwhelmed, sort of, by the living history that was around us.”
Source: NPR
© 2008 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
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