Sara Elizabeth Carter (née Dougherty, later Bayes; July 21, 1898 – January 8, 1979) was an American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

musician, singer, and songwriter. Remembered mostly for her deep, distinctive, mature singing voice, she was the lead singer on most of the recordings of the historic

Carter Family Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. ...

act in the 1920s and 1930s. In her earliest recordings her voice was pitched very high.

Life and career

Born in

Copper Creek, Virginia Copper Creek is an unincorporated community located in Russell County, Virginia Russell County () is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,781. Its county seat is Lebanon. History On J ...

, the daughter of William Sevier Dougherty and Nancy Elizabeth Kilgore, at age 16 she married A. P. Carter on June 18, 1915; they divorced in 1936. They had three children: Gladys (Mrs. Millard), Janette (Mrs. Jett), and Joe. In 1927, she and A. P. began performing as the

, perhaps the first commercial rural country music group. They were joined by her cousin, Maybelle, who was married to A. P.'s brother, Ezra Carter. Later, Sara married Coy Bayes, A. P.'s first cousin, and moved to California in 1943, and the original group disbanded. In the late 1940s, Maybelle began performing with her daughters Helen,

June June is the sixth month of the year in the Julian calendar, Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the second of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the third of five months to have a length of less than 31 days. June contains the summ ...

, and Anita as The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle (the act was renamed The Carter Family during the 1960s). On Carter Family recordings, Sara is credited as author of the songs "Fifty Miles of Elbow Room" and "Keep on the Firing Line"; in truth she discovered these

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

songs when they were being sung at a

Seventh-day Adventist The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, a ...

church she visited. RCA gave her songwriter credit, as it did A.P. Carter on his public domain discoveries. The Carter Family recordings of these tunes brought the songs worldwide fame. Sara wrote or co-wrote several other songs, including "My Foothills Home", "The Dying Soldier", "Lonesome Pine Special", "Farther On", and "Railroading on the Great Divide". Sara reunited with Maybelle in 1966 for a Columbia Records album titled “An Historic Reunion,” which was later re-issued on Bear Family Records, with additional songs, as “Sara and Maybelle Carter.” They performed together during the folk music craze of the 1960s at the Newport Folk Festival. The duo were featured as guests in a late 1960s episode of the Wilburn Brothers television show, singing "Little Moses" and "As the Band Played Dixie". Following this period, Sara retired to California, although she and Maybelle remained close for the rest of their lives and Sara and Coy journeyed yearly from California to Virginia by car, pulling a travel trailer. In the early 1970s, Sara and Maybelle reunited to appear on

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American Country music, country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later s ...

's network television show and to perform together at the first annual A.P. Carter Memorial Festival in Hiltons, Virginia.

Family tree

Legacy

Carter was inducted as part of the Original

in the

Country Music Hall of Fame The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has amas ...

in 1970, along with

Bill Monroe William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre take ...

. In 1993, her image appeared on a U.S. postage stamp honoring the Carter Family. In 2001 she was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor. On her 2008 album '' All I Intended to Be'',

Emmylou Harris Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, includin ...

includes the song "How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower", co-written with Kate and Anna McGarrigle about the relationship between Sara and A.P., inspired by a documentary that the three of them saw on television.

Death

Sara Carter died in

Lodi, California Lodi ( ) is a city located in San Joaquin County, California, in the center portion of California's Central Valley. The population was 62,134 at the 2010 census. The estimated population is approximately 67,586 according to 2019 census data. L ...

, aged 80, and is interred in the Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church graveyard in Hiltons, Virginia. The A. P. and Sara Carter House,

A. P. Carter Homeplace A. P. Carter Homeplace is a historic home located at Maces Spring, Scott County, Virginia. It is a small, one-story, half-dovetailed log cabin, with a single room on the first floor and loft above. The house is most notable for its association wi ...

, A. P. Carter Store, Maybelle and Ezra Carter House, and

Mt. Vernon Methodist Church Mt. Vernon Methodist Church is a historic Methodist church in Maces Spring, Virginia, United States. It was built about 1895 and is a one-story, rectangular frame structure with gable roof and simple wooden steeple. The church is most notable ...

are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

as components of the Carter Family Thematic Resource., pdfhost.focus.nps.gov (PDF); accessed November 14, 2015.

References

Sources

* Wolfe, Charles (1998). "The Carter Family". In ''The Encyclopedia of Country Music''. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 84–5, 617.

External links

Sara Carter recordings
at the

Discography of American Historical Recordings The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The DAHR provides some of these original recordings, free of charge, via audio streaming, along with ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Sara 1898 births 1979 deaths People from Russell County, Virginia Country musicians from Virginia American women country singers American country singer-songwriters American autoharp players 20th-century American singers Cash–Carter family American United Methodists The Carter Family members 20th-century American women singers 20th-century Methodists Singer-songwriters from Virginia