June Carter Cash

If there is a royalty of American music, June Carter Cash spent her life in the high court, witness to its riches. She was the daughter of Maybelle Carter, niece to A. P. Carter and Sara Carter (these three the legendary Carter Family), mother of Carlene Carter and stepmother to Rosanne Cash, and lest we forget, wife of Johnny Cash.

She was also a formidable singer and songwriter in her own right, although June Carter Cash's music is not as readily available on CD as is the vast output of certain among her family members. But thanks to Dualtone Records, we do have some fine material by which to remember the singer and songwriter, who died in 2003.

Press On is a Grammy-nominated collection originally released in 1992. The recording finds June Carter Cash involved in something like a musical inventory, a reverential but hardly somber look backward at the music that was her native world. She draws from the Carter Family catalogue as easily as she moves ahead to the years in which country music saw certain among its bright lights returning to "traditional" sounds, Marty Stuart and Ricky Skaggs included. Highlights include a duet with Johnny on "The Far Side of the Banks of Jordan" and a moving version of "Ring of Fire," which she cowrote.

Wildwood Flower (2003) proves to be a worthy continuation of Press On's musical memory project, done in the light of husband Johnny's remarkable -- and not altogether foreseeable -- emergence as an MTV emblem of hipness. Produced by son John Carter Cash, this recording, like Press On, features Norman Blake on acoustic guitar. The bulk of the material comes from the Carter Family catalogue. "Keep on the Sunny Side" kicks off the CD, but the more meditative, darker material such as "Storms Are on the Ocean" proves the most stirring. Her voice is frail at times and the performances sometimes loose, but June Carter Cash's Wildwood Flower reminds the listener of a time when music was something people played for one another, not simply a package shipped from an Internet warehouse.

For those who are hooked by these recordings, it's worth checking out Carryin' On With Johnny Cash and June Carter. Mostly from 1967, the Carryin' On material is marked by a very real willingness to get silly. Through these songs, such as "Long Legged Guitar-Pickin' Man" (on which June unleashes some Wanda Jackson-like growls) and "Jackson," the humor that was an important part of country music's "hillbilly" origins emerges again -- and it's a breath of fresh air, even if this recording is a bit thin when put beside the best work of these two artists. (WARREN ZANES)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide