The Carter Family
(PBS Home Video/Paramount)

PBS American Experience produced this excellent overview of “the “first family of country music,” the Carter Family. At the turn of the century, A.P. Carter was determined to pursue a career in music and although his aspirations were ridiculed by his peers, his determination took him farther than he had ever imagined. He married Sara Dougherty in 1915 and for the next eleven years they performed as a duo at local events near their home in Virginia. They were eventually joined by Sara’s cousin Maybelle, who had invented a new kind of guitar picking that integrated simple chord progressions with melody lines that came to be known as “the Carter Scratch.” Following an audition for Ralph Peer and Victor Records in 1927, the Carters got their big break and began a successful recording career that resulted in hit after hit for the next seven years. “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” “Wildwood Flower,” “Keep On The Sunny Side” were several of their most popular numbers and A.P. continued to mine new material by going off for weeks at a time to remote rural areas of the South and learning the folk songs of the local townsfolk. Their personal lives eventually took a turn to the dark side and put an end to the wildly successful group, but not before leaving an indelible mark in the annals of country, folk and bluegrass music. Writer/producer/director Kathy Conkwright does an excellent job of unearthing archival footage and photographs to tell the Carters’ story and presents a fairly comprehensive overview of this seminal group in the space of 60 minutes. ---David Bassin