Charlie and Lonnie Loudermilk of Alabama (they were cousins of the singer-songwriter John D. Loudermilk) were as hard-gospel as it gets, fiery and pious. They tried and failed as a musical act throughout the 1940s, never able to quit their jobs at the post office to make a singing career. They traveled back and forth from Alabama up to Chattanooga's WDEF radio, Knoxville's WROL (1947) and WNOX (1948), and Memphis, playing radio shows and high schools with their brand of hell-fire and brimstone preach-singing. One of their benefactors was a Memphis DJ named Eddie Hill, who let them sing on his radio show and invited them to play local events. Their kind of music was certain to appeal to the fundamentalist son of a fundamentalist family, and young J.R. Cash would certainly have heard them from across the river in Arkansas on Eddie Hill's shows on WMPS (1948-49) before they left to return to WNOX.

It is likely that J.R. Cash saw the Loudermilks--who shortened their name to Louvin in 1947--in Memphis in 1948 with Eddie Hill. Although he remembers it vividly, not many others would have. The frustrated duo had had no success whatsoever with their recording career. They tried a song called "Alabama" for Apollo Records in 1947, but it sold to nobody but probably Charlie and Ira themselves, and that relationship ended quickly. John Cash now remembers that the announcer said "Here are the Louvin Brothers, singing their new record, 'Kneeling Drunkard's Plea,' for Mrs. Carrie Cash." This would have been the kind of song the Louvins would have done, with its religious theme being just what they were doing at the time. The problem is, they didn't have a record, new or otherwise. And, they didn't record the song. And, well, it hadn't even been published yet. But maybe we can overcome all these.

The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle were country royalty, although in 1948 nobody seemed to remember that, either. At that point, they were just a regional family musical act, moving from radio station base to radio station base, as was the custom of the day. And, although they had achieved some popularity previously, their short stay at WNOX would prove fateful indeed.

The Original Carter Family was headed by A.P. Carter of Maces Springs, Virginia, and included his wife Sara, and Sara's cousin, Maybelle, who also was married to A.P.'s brother Ezra ("Eck"). (It's complicated.) By 1933, the Originals, who had come onto the scene in 1927 with some of the most important recordings in American music history, were showing signs of wear. Recording music never paid the bills for these people; in 1929 A.P. was in Detroit working in a factory, while Eck and Maybelle moved to Washington, DC, where he was a mail-train clerk. In between, they would assemble and make recordings. But in 1933, A.P. and Sara separated, and relationships--and careers--got difficult. In 1937, Maybelle's daughters, Helen, June, and even four-year old Anita, made their first appearance on Bristol, TN's WOPI. In 1938, the whole bunch moved to Del Rio, Texas, then to San Antonio, while the Originals worked on the Mexican border radio stations XERA, XEG and XENT. The girls, along with A.P. and Sara's girls Gladys and Janette, and son Joe, made appearances. But in 1939, Sara married Coy Bayes, who was A.P.'s cousin (even more complicated, now). While A.P. lived in a house with the kids, Sara and Coy took an apartment down the street. It was obvious that the Originals were not going to last much longer.

The unsung, so to speak, force in what happened next is Eck Carter. Although not part of the group, A.P.'s younger brother made up for it in ambition and drive. He could see that his brother's relationship with his ex-wife was toxic to the Family act. So he stepped in to fill the void. In the summer of 1941, while on break from the Texas gig, Eck took Maybelle and his girls on a personal appearance tour in southeastern Virginia. Helen was 14; June 12; Anita eight. They repeated it the following summer; it would presage what was to come. On October 14, 1941 the Originals made their last recordings together. By this time Sara had moved to California. After one final go, at WBT in Charlotte, the Original Carter family broke up for good in early 1943. Eck moved his family to Richmond, where the girls went to school and worked six nights a week doing radio and personal appearances for WRNL radio. In 1946 they moved across town to WRVA's Old Dominion Barn Dance, which was heard nationwide over CBS radio.

In 1948, after June's graduation from high school, they moved to Knoxville's WNOX Tennessee Barn Dance. The cast of the Barn Dance included a young Carl Smith, who would marry June Carter four years later; and Homer and Jethro, who had hired a guitarist named Chester Atkins. During the day, the girls performed on WNOX's Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round. One of their fellow acts was the intense brother duo, the Louvin Brothers. At the time, neither act had a recording contract, and each was following the normal method of making a living at the time: they migrated from gig to gig, setting up shop and doing radio shows and halls and dances. But the trajectories of the Brothers and the Sisters were going in opposite directions. The girls moved on after just one season at WNOX, heading to Springfield, Missouri, and the Ozark Jubilee in 1949. They had hired Chester Atkins in Knoxville, and he followed them to Springfield, which is where he had worked for Red Foley in 1947 before joining Homer and Jethro's group in Knoxville in 1948. The Louvins got a contract with Decca, but only released one failed record. Then they tried it with MGM, but by 1950 they went back to Memphis to work for the post office.

Meanwhile, 1949 was big for Red Foley, who recorded "Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy" that year, and was the biggest star at Nashville's WSM radio, which broadcast its own barn dance program, the Grand Ole Opry. It was also big for George Morgan, who had joined the Opry in 1948. By 1949, both of these guys would be trying to move the Carters to Nashville. The girls were making a name for themselves in Springfield. Eck had left the railroad to manage the group full-time, and the girls were coming of age. Their first recording session occurred on Feb 2, 1949 in Atlanta, where they put down an original composition, "Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" for RCA Victor. Acuff-Rose published the song, which was copyrighted in 1949, the year after young J.R. remembers the Louvins doing it. The composer credit for "Kneeling" on the original publishing sheet was "Maybelle, Helen, June and Anita Carter," although Johnny Cash's 1996 "Unchained" deleted Maybelle Carter's name. Chester Atkins' connection to Homer and Jethro also proved fortuitous. On May 17, 1949, nineteen year old June Carter went to New York City to record "Baby It's Cold Outside" with the comedy duo. Sister Anita played bass and Atkins played guitar for his former bosses. The song went to Number 1.

The spotlight was on the girls and, curiously, not on Mother Maybelle. During this entire period, she did not record a single solo record, let alone an album (in fact, the Carter Sisters--by then called the Carter Family--would not do an album until 1962, a year after Maybelle's first solo album and single were recorded). Apparently content to remain in the background, Maybelle is astonishingly overlooked throughout this period. A history of the Grand Ole Opry published in 1958--scarcely 30 years after she and her Family practically invented modern country music--does not even mention either her arrival there in 1950 or subsequent tenure.

1950 was a pivotal year for the Carters, just as the Louvins were losing yet another record deal, this with MGM. In March Helen married pilot Glenn Jones, a marriage which would last until her death in June 1998. Anita married fiddler Dale Potter, and in June, the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle joined WSM's Grand Ole Opry. The group was not selling many records, however, with RCA putting out singles through 1950 and a few into 1951 before dropping them. The focus was on the three girls, with June and Anita doing solo sessions in 1950 for RCA, and Helen recording duets with Grant Turner and Don Davis for Tennessee Records. Davis would later become Anita's second husband. June had long been recognized as the "leader," although she was only 21 at her first solo session in August. Known for her strong comic talents--she introduced the character "Aunt Polly" in the act, a sort of young "Cousin Minnie"--she was pegged by RCA honcho/producer Steve Sholes to record comedy records, including "gems" like "Root Hog or Die," "The Thing," and "Mommie's Real Peculiar"--much to her later chagrin. Sholes also teamed young Anita up with another RCA artist, Clarence Eugene "Hank" Snow, who had joined the Opry a few months before the girls. Their "Bluebird Island" hit the Top 10 in March 1951, the month Anita turned 18. Snow introduced the Carters to his manager, Col. Tom Parker. Parker, who was to be a neighbor of Maybelle Carter's in Madison, TN, would take over management of the group and, in the mid-50s book them on tour with another of his acts, Elvis Presley.

In October 1951 June and Carl Smith, now fellow Opry performers, announced their engagement. In 1952, the Carters, along with Carl Smith and Hank Williams, made three appearances on Kate Smith's NBC television show from New York City, including one on April 23rd which featured a duet between Anita and Hank on "I Can't Help It." Hank had wined and dined Anita, and was her date on her 18th birthday the year before. By the end of the year, he would be dead. In early April, the group backed June's fiance, Smith, who was by now a huge star, on two sessions which resulted in his gospel album, "Sunday Down South" for Columbia. It also resulted in a record deal for the girls, but it, too, died in short order. On July 9, 1952 June and Smith married in Alcoa, TN.

The success of his brother's family was not lost on A.P., who was watching from Virginia. In 1952, he convinced Sara to give it another go, and "reunited" the Carter Family--with their children Janette and Joe to do a series of recordings for Acme Records of Kentucky. However, the Carter "sound" had seen its day pass, and the projects failed. This incarnation of the Carter Family recorded its last sides on April 20, 1956, in the same brick building in Bristol where A.P., Sara and Maybelle had made history 29 years before. Sara went back to Coy in California and A.P. retired to run a country store in Maces Springs. On occasion, he would silently appear in the back of an auditorium where his nieces and sister-in-law were playing, never saying a word, and never performed with them. He died, virtually forgotten, in November 1960. It was only after his death that the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle would bill themselves as the Carter Family, the heirs to the name and legacy.

In 1953 and 1954 the group was featured, in various incarnations, on a syndicated television series, Stars of the Grand Ole Opry. But given that they had achieved such fame at early ages, it was inevitable that other interests would intrude. Helen's husband wanted her to stay home and raise a family; June's marriage to Carl Smith was proving to be tempestuous; Anita was the only one with a record deal. Although the act continued, it was increasingly rare for them all to be together. In 1955, Chet Atkins, by now a bigwig at RCA, decided to make Anita a rock and roll star, forming the girl group Nita, Rita and Ruby. It lasted through six singles into 1957. Anita married Don Davis and concentrated on raising a family in Alabama, infrequently shuttling back up to Nashville on occasion. June and Smith had a daughter in Sep 55, Rebecca, but separated soon after, and June moved to New York City to study acting at the Actor's Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse (her "rock and roll years"). Her acting career took prominence, and the act was together only for Opry appearances. Smith ran off with Goldie Hill in 1957 and his career crashed around the same time. June married Rip Nix in 1958. By 1959 Maybelle was working as a nurse's aide in a Nashville hospital. A.P.'s death may have inspired Flatt and Scruggs to record 1961's "Songs of the Famous Carter Family," which featured Maybelle (as a musician only). That year she finally recorded her first single ("Wildwood Flower"/"Liberty Dance") for Briar, which released her first album. The folk revival brought her to prominence and she appeared at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. That probably takes us far enough in the Carter story for this time.

In 1952 Fred Rose convinced Capitol to give the Louvins a record deal, but the results were the same: sad. Finally, they were convinced that they had to record some non-religious material if they had any hope of making it and by 1955 they were indeed finally making it. They joined the Opry that year (just as their old associates, the Carters, were pulling back) and released the Top 10 "When I Stop Dreaming." Several more hits came into 1956, but the rock and roll craze steamrolled their last chance at the really big time. Ira became a frenzied, mad religious drunk, apparently convinced--and incensed--that he sold his soul by recording secular music. But one more connection for our story: on May 2, 1956, exactly one month after their old fan recorded "I Walk the Line," the brothers went into the studio and did record a song from their old mates at WNOX when they did A.P. Carter's "I'll Be All Smiles Tonight." At the same session, they recorded "Mary Of the Wild Moor," which that teenaged-fan-grown-up-and-made-good recorded himself more than 40 years later for his "Solitary Man" album.

The brothers did not get along well with each other or others. In 1957 they quit the Opry, taking a stint at Wheeling, WV's WWVA Jamboree, but returned to WSM in 1959. In 1960, the recorded their seminal gospel album, "Satan Is Real." And, yes, they did record "Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" for this album, 12 years after J.R. remembers hearing it. During the photo shoot for the cover, they built a huge fire, presumably intended to suggest hell. The contraption exploded, nearly dispatching the boys and crew to reaches where they might have determined first hand Satan's real-ness. But it got worse. In 1961, Ira's third wife Faye (he had four in his 41 years of life) shot him four times during an argument. He lived, although doctors refused to remove any of the bullets from his body, and he carried them around for the rest of his life, perhaps his version of carrying the Cross for atonement. He and Charlie broke up in 1963. In 1965 Ira and his fourth wife were killed in Missouri when a drunk driver rammed them headon. Irony.

Charlie survives to this day, and the Louvins were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (along with, apropos to this story, Homer and Jethro, but not Carl Smith) this year. The Louvins made some excellent music together, and are considered the precursors of other harmony groups like the Everly Brothers, but they were never actually BIG. It was only later, with acts like Emmylou Harris and the Byrds covering their songs, that they gained attention.

So, did young J.R. hear them play "Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" in 1948? It is possible that the Carter girls were singing the song before they published and recorded it, and that the Louvin boys picked it up. It certainly wasn't their "new record" and I wonder how J.R. would have remembered that song, never sung on the radio, if they had done it just that once. But stranger things have happened.

Mark