In 2003, shortly before June Carter Cash died, members of the Carter family gathered in June Carter Cash’s living room to record “Keep on the Sunny Side.” Johnny Cash was there, along with June Carter Cash’s daughter Carlene Carter and other relatives from a younger generation.
For June Carter Cash, the song carried a lifetime of family history. The original Carter Family had recorded “Keep on the Sunny Side” in 1939. A later generation performed the song with Johnny Cash on a 1963 album. Now the family was singing it together once more, at home.
A life in the family band
June Carter Cash was born into one of country music’s founding families. June Carter Cash’s mother, Maybelle Carter, had played with the original Carter Family. As a child, June Carter Cash joined family performances on the radio; by adulthood, June Carter Cash had become a familiar presence at the Grand Ole Opry.
June Carter Cash could sing, play music, act and make an audience laugh. That range sometimes gets lost when June Carter Cash’s life is told only through the marriage to Johnny Cash. June Carter Cash also wrote songs, including “Ring of Fire,” which June Carter Cash co-wrote with Merle Kilgore. Johnny Cash’s recording made it a country No. 1 in 1963.
After June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash married in 1968, the couple performed together for decades. Their voices became closely linked through songs such as “Jackson” and “If I Were a Carpenter.” Yet June Carter Cash continued to carry the older Carter Family songs, music learned long before the two met.
The music came home
Near the end of June Carter Cash’s life, June Carter Cash recorded Wildwood Flower, an album produced by June Carter Cash’s son, John Carter Cash. The project brought together June Carter Cash’s own work and songs associated with the Carter Family.
The living-room performance of “Keep on the Sunny Side” included Johnny Cash, Carlene Carter, granddaughter Tiffany Anastasia Lowe, daughter-in-law Laura Cash and niece Lorrie Carter Bennett. It joined several generations of a musical family in one recording. No concert audience was needed; the people who had inherited the song were there to sing it with June Carter Cash.
June Carter Cash died on May 15, 2003. Wildwood Flower was released after June Carter Cash’s death, on September 2. Johnny Cash died ten days later, on September 12.
A song passed forward
“Keep on the Sunny Side” was already an old song when June Carter Cash first knew it. Across the decades, different members of the family gave the song a voice. The 2003 recording did the same, while preserving a moment the family had shared in June Carter Cash’s living room.
Listeners can hear June Carter Cash in countless recordings made on stages and in studios. This one holds a different kind of memory: June Carter Cash singing a familiar song with Johnny Cash and the next generations of the Carter family beside June Carter Cash.