Live Recordings from the Louisiana Hayride: June Carter

By the time of her death in 2003, June Carter was perhaps best known as the wife of Johnny Cash, as his sometime duet partner and as his constant anchor during their 35-year marriage. Blessed with royal country lineage (her mother was Maybelle Carter of the legendary Carter Family), June possessed only a moderate voice and range, but made up for it with boundless on-stage energy and a fine comedic sense. Louisiana Hayride collects some of her appearances on the venerable radio show of the same name, which was broadcast through the South in the 1950s and 1960s on KWKH out of Shreveport, LA. The first nine tracks here are drawn from her debut appearance on the Hayride in 1960, and they perfectly illustrate her live act, which was part comedy, part dialogue, part poetry recital, and then finally, she gets around to singing a song. On several occasions you can hear her vocal start to careen off-pitch, but she adjusts and lets her energy and country smile carry things. As such, June is an acquired taste as a singer, but her comedic talents are really the point here, and these live cuts are the perfect way to get a sense of this charismatic performer. She sings three Carter family classics, "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow," "Wildwood Flower," and "Worried Man Blues," and Johnny joins her on "It Ain't Me, Babe" and "Ballad of a Teenage Queen."