Maybelle Carter
Maybelle Carter (
May 10,
1909 –
October 23,
1978) was an
American Country music musician.
She was born
Maybelle Addington in
Nickelsville,
Virginia, the daughter of Hugh Jackson Addington and Margaret S. Kilgore.
On
March 13,
1926, Maybelle married Ezra J. Carter. They had three daughters,
Helen,
Valerie June (better known as
June Carter Cash), and
Anita.
She was a member of the original
Carter Family, which was formed in
1927 by her brother-in-law,
A. P. Carter, who was married to her cousin,
Sara, also a part of the trio. It was perhaps the first commercial rural Country music group. Maybelle was the guitarist and also played autoharp and banjo; she created a unique sound for the group with her innovative 'scratch' style of guitar playing, where she used her thumb to play melody on the bass and middle strings, and her index finger to fill out the rhythm.
She was widely respected and loved by the
Grand Ole Opry community of the early
1950s, and was popularly known as "Mother Maybelle." Maybelle and her daughthers toured during the 1950s and 1960s as "Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters." Maybelle also briefly toured with former Carter Family member, Sara Carter, during the 1960s's folk music craze.
Maybelle Carter is interred in
Hendersonville Memory Gardens,
Hendersonville,
Tennessee. Part of her story can be seen in the
2005 movie "
Walk The Line."
In
1993, her image appeared on a
U.S. postage stamp honoring the Carter Family. In
2001 she was initiated into the
International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor.
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Carter FamilyWill you miss me when I'm gone? : the Carter Family and their legacy in American music, Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2002
