June Carter Cash (born Valerie June Carter; Maces Spring, Virginia, June 23, 1929 – Nashville, Tennessee, May 15, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter and dancer. A five-time Grammy award-winner, she was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. Prior to her marriage to Cash, she was professionally known as June Carter
and occasionally was still credited as such after her marriage (as well
as on songwriting credits predating it). She played guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp, and acted in several films and television shows. Carter Cash won five Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
June Carter Cash was born Valerie June Carter in Maces Spring, Virginia, to Maybelle (née Addington) and Ezra Carter.
Her parents were country music performers and she performed with the
Carter Family from the age of 10, in 1939. In March 1943, when the
Carter Family trio stopped recording together at the end of the WBT contract, Maybelle Carter, with encouragement from her husband Ezra, formed "Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters" with her daughters, Helen, Anita, and June. The new group first aired on radio station WRNL in Richmond, Virginia,
on June 1. Doc (Addington) and Carl (McConnell) - Maybelle's brother and
cousin, respectively, known as "The Virginia Boys", joined them in late
1945. June, then 16, was a co-announcer with Ken Allyn and did the
commercials on the radio shows for Red Star Flour, Martha White, and Thalhimers Department Store, just to name a few. For the next year, the Carters and Doc and Carl did show dates within driving range of Richmond, through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. She attended John Marshall High School during this period.[4] June later said she had to work harder at her music than her sisters, but she had her own special talent —comedy.[5]
A highlight of the road shows was her "Aunt Polly" comedy routine. With
her thin and lanky frame, June Carter often played a comedic foil
during the group's performances alongside other Opry stars Faron Young and Webb Pierce.
Carl McConnell wrote in his memoirs that June was "a natural-born
clown, if there ever was one". Decades later, Carter revived Aunt Polly
for the 1976 TV series Johnny Cash & Friends.
After Doc and Carl dropped out of the music business in late 1946, Maybelle and her daughters moved to Sunshine Sue Workman's "Old Dominion Barn Dance" on the WRVA Richmond station. After a while there, they moved to WNOX in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they met Chet Atkins with Homer and Jethro.
In 1949, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, with their lead guitarist, Atkins, were living in Springfield, Missouri, and performing regularly at KWTO. Ezra "Eck" Carter, Maybelle's husband and manager of the group, declined numerous offers from the Grand Ole Opry to move the act to Nashville, Tennessee,
because the Opry would not permit Atkins to accompany the group
onstage. Atkins' reputation as a guitar player had begun to spread, and
studio musicians were fearful that he would displace them as a
'first-call' player if he came to Nashville. Finally, in 1950, Opry
management relented and the group, along with Atkins, became part of the
Opry company. Here the family befriended Hank Williams and Elvis Presley (to whom they were distantly related), and June met Johnny Cash.
June and her sisters, with mother Maybelle and aunt Sara joining
in from time to time, reclaimed the name "The Carter Family" for their
act during the 1960s and '70s.
While June Carter Cash may be best known for singing and songwriting,
she was also an author, dancer, actress, comedian, philanthropist, and
humanitarian. Director Elia Kazan saw her perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and encouraged her to study acting. She studied with Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. Her acting roles included Mrs. "Momma" Dewey in Robert Duvall's 1998 movie The Apostle, Sister Ruth, wife to Johnny Cash's character Kid Cole, on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993–97), and Clarise on Gunsmoke in 1957. She was notable as Mayhayley Lancaster playing alongside husband Cash in the 1983 television movie Murder in Coweta County. June was also Momma James in The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James. She also acted in occasional comedy skits for various Johnny Cash TV programs.
As a singer, she had both a solo career and a career singing with
first her family and later her husband. As a solo artist, she became
somewhat successful with upbeat country tunes of the 1950s such as
"Jukebox Blues" and, with her exaggerated breaths, the comedic hit "No
Swallerin' Place" by Frank Loesser. June also recorded "The Heel" in the
1960s along with many other songs.
In the early 1960s, June Carter wrote the song "Ring of Fire", which later went on to be a hit for her future husband, Johnny Cash. She co-wrote the song with fellow songwriter Merle Kilgore. June wrote the lyrics about her relationship with Johnny Cash and she offered the song to her sister Anita Carter,
who was the first singer to record the song. In 1963, Johnny recorded
the song with the Carter Family singing backup, and added mariachi
horns. The song became a number-one hit and went on to become one of the
most recognizable songs in the world of country music.
In her autobiography, “I Walked the Line”, Johnny's first wife Vivian
Cash disputes the myth that June Carter co-wrote the song, "Ring of
Fire". Vivian relates the story that Johnny told her in 1963 that he
wrote the song with Merle Kilgore and Curly while fishing and that he
was going to give June half credit because “She needs the money. And I
like her.”
Her first notable studio performance with Johnny Cash occurred in 1964 when she duetted with Cash on "It Ain't Me Babe", a Bob Dylan composition, that was released as a single and on Cash's album Orange Blossom Special. In 1967, the two found more substantial success with their recording of "Jackson", which was followed by a collaboration album, Carryin' On with Johnny Cash and June Carter.
All these releases antedated her marriage to Cash (upon which event she
changed her professional name to June Carter Cash). She continued to
work with Cash on record and on stage for the rest of her life,
recording a number of duets with Cash for his various albums and being a
regular on The Johnny Cash Show from 1969 to 1971 and on Cash's annual Christmas specials. After Carryin' On, June Carter Cash recorded one more direct collaboration album, Johnny Cash and His Woman, released in 1973, and along with her daughters was a featured vocalist on Cash's 1974 album The Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me. She also shared sleeve credit with her husband on a 2000 small-label gospel release, Return to the Promised Land
Although she provided vocals on many recordings, and shared the
billing with Cash on several album releases, June Carter Cash only
recorded three solo albums during her lifetime: the first, Appalachian Pride, released in 1975, Press On (1999), and Wildwood Flower, released posthumously in 2003 and produced by her son, John Carter Cash. Appalachian Pride is the only one of the three on which Johnny Cash does not perform, while Press On is notable for featuring June Carter Cash singing her original arrangement of "Ring of Fire".
One of her final appearances was a nonspeaking/nonsinging appearance in the music video for her husband's 2003 single, "Hurt",
filmed a few months before her death. One of her last known public
appearances was on April 7, 2003, just over a month before her death,
when she appeared on the CMT Flameworthy awards program to accept an achievement award on behalf of her husband, who was too ill to attend.
She won a Grammy award in 1999 for, Press On. Her last album, Wildwood Flower,
won two additional Grammys. It contains bonus video enhancements
showing extracts from the film of the recording sessions, which took
place at the Carter Family estate in Hiltons, Virginia,
on September 18–20, 2002. The songs on the album include "Big Yellow
Peaches", "Sinking in the Lonesome Sea", "Temptation", and the trademark
staple "Wildwood Flower".
Due to her involvement in providing backing vocals on many of her
husband's recordings, a further posthumous release occurred in 2014,
when Out Among the Stars
was released under Johnny Cash's name. The album consists of previously
unreleased recordings from the early 1980s, including two on which June
Carter Cash provides duet vocals.
Her autobiography was published in 1979, and she wrote a memoir, From the Heart, almost 10 years later.
Carter was married three times and had one child with each husband.
All three of her children went on to have successful careers in country
music. She was married first to country singer Carl Smith
from July 9, 1952, until their divorce in 1956. Together, they wrote
"Time's A-Wastin". They had a daughter, Rebecca Carlene Smith,
professionally known as Carlene Carter, a country musician.
June's second marriage was to Edwin "Rip" Nix, a former football player
and police officer on November 11, 1957. They had a daughter, Rosie Nix Adams,
on July 13, 1958. The couple divorced in 1966. Rosie was a country/rock
singer. On October 24, 2003, Rosie, aged 45, died from accidental
carbon monoxide poisoning. She and bluegrass musician Jimmy Campbell
were on a school bus, which had been converted for travel. Several
propane heaters were being used to heat the bus.
Carter and the entire Carter Family had performed with Johnny
Cash for a number of years. In 1968, Cash proposed to Carter during a
live performance at the London Ice House in London, Ontario. They married on March 1 in Franklin, Kentucky, and remained married until her death in May 2003, just four months before Cash died. The couple's son, John Carter Cash, is a musician, songwriter, and producer.
She also gained four stepdaughters from her third husband’s previous marriage to Vivian Liberto; including Cindy and Rosanne.
Carter's distant cousin, the 39th U.S. president Jimmy Carter,
became closely acquainted with Cash and Carter and maintained their
friendship throughout their lifetimes. In a June 1977 speech, Jimmy
Carter acknowledged that June Carter was his distant cousin.
Carter was a longtime supporter of SOS Children's Villages.
In 1974, the Cashes donated money to help build a village near their
home in Barrett Town, Jamaica, which they visited frequently, playing
the guitar and singing songs to the children in the village.
June Carter Cash also had close relationships with a number of entertainers, including Audrey Williams, James Dean, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Jessi Colter, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, Robert Duvall and Roy Orbison.
Carter died in
Nashville, Tennessee, on May 15, 2003, at the age of 73, from
complications following heart-valve replacement surgery, surrounded by
her family, including her husband of 35 years, Johnny Cash. At Carter's funeral, her stepdaughter
Rosanne Cash
stated, "If being a wife were a corporation, June would have been a
CEO. It was her most treasured role." Johnny Cash died four months after
Carter's death, and Carter's daughter,
Rosie Nix Adams, a month after that. All three are buried at the
Hendersonville Memory Gardens near their home in
Hendersonville, Tennessee.
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