Carlene Carter Fan Club: Press

(This article is from the archives of Baby Ride Easy, the Carlene Carter fan site run by Doug Stalnaker 2003-2008.)


Johnny Cash's step-daughter has just come close to passing out. On a flying visit to London in anticipation of her forthcoming show, Carlene Carter has fallen foul of the the food, the weather, the beer, who knows?...

"I just felt real ill all of a sudden," she declares, in a breathy, slightly Southern drawl, talking a couple of weeks after the event. "So I just jumped up because I could see the floor coming towards me and I was right in the middle of doing an interview..."

Carlene Carter has been creating a stir in country music circles since she first stowed away to Britain at the height of the punk era and started making music. Daughter of country stars Carl Smith and June Carter, step-daughter to Johnny Cash and half-sister to Rosanne Cash, Carlene has sidestepped most of the musical guidelines followed by the rest of her family.

Last year's Little Love Letters was her strongest album yet, and a near-perfect mesh of pop rock and country. Choruses nagged into the subconcious, and sugar-sweet melodies vied for space with a stripped-down rockabilly guitar sound that tipped more than a nod in the direction of her former collaborators Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds.

On the eve of her London gig, Carlene Carter sounds animated and enthusiastic while displaying a welcome streak of self-deprecating humour.

THIS HAS TO BE YOUR FIRST BRITISH SHOW IN YEARS.

"Ten years I think. Which is strange when you consider how much time I used to spend over here. I actually consider London to be my second home. I first came here in 1976 and then came back again in '77 and '78. It was during one of those years, when I was working with Dave Edmunds on my first album (Carlene Carter), that I did 17 round trips from LA to London. That was the time when I figured I'd be better off just moving here."

THE LATE SEVENTIES MUST HABE BEEN A GREAT TIME FOR A MUSICIAN LIVING IN LONDON.

"Yeah, that whole punk and new wave thing was happening in music and that made it very exciting. I married Nick Lowe in '79 and he was having some success at the time. There was Elvis (Costello), Graham Parker, Dave Edmunds. It was great to be around all these creative people and seeing them do something, which at the time was considered unique, inspired me to get things moving with my own music. Anything out of the ordinary stood a chance. Which I took comfort in."

EVER SINCE YOUR CAREER BEGAN IT SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN SOMETHING OF A STRUGGLE. YOU'VE EITHER BEEN CONSIDERED TOO ROCK FOR THE COUNTRY FANS OR TOO COUNTRY FOR THE ROCK CROWD.

"Tell me about it! That's why I like London. I had a lot of creative freedom during my time here which I never would have had in Nashville. Living in London actually enabled me to be myself. I remember Capitol Records playing my stuff at a time when no radio station in American would touch me. The thing is now, my record company (Giant) accept that some things sell better in Europe than they do in America. There were songs off the Little Love Letters album that America wouldn't go near. I'm actually working on four more songs specifically for the European market. Thankfully, the record company want to follow that line."

LITTLE LOVE LETTERS SEEMED LIKE THE MOST FOCUSSED ALBUM YOU'VE EVER MADE. WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY THAT YOU WERE TRYING TO FIND THE RIGHT MUSICAL DIRECTION FOR SOME TIME?

"It took me a hell of a long time to come to terms with exactly what I wanted to do with my music. And I now know. I'm not happy with all of the albums I've made. My favourite of those first few records is still Musical Shapes (the 1980 album considered by many to have predated Lyle Lovett and Mary-Chapin Carpenter in the new country stakes). We had great reviews, but not much in terms of sales. I think I've met every single person who bought that record. We did 30,000 copies and I swear that every copy has turned up backstage at a gig with someone wanting me to sign it. I was proud of that record because I felt that Nick and I had made an album that really was country rock in the truest sense of the word, which is exactly what I've always wanted to do. I felt very disillusioned that Nashville didn't open their arms to it. They just thought I was out of my mind."

DID YOU FIND THAT REJECTION TOUGH TO DEAL WITH?

"I did. I floundered around not really knowing what to do. I was under enormous pressure from my record company at the time. They wanted to market me in a particular way, but I didn't want to compromise myself just to please the country crowd. I wasn't going to start doing a bunch of George Jones covers. So I thought the best thing to do was to experiment and then take a long hiatus. When I came back I was a little surer about what I wanted to do. I figured that if it worked out it would be because of my own talent and if I failed, it would be because whatever I was trying to do wasn't really me."

NASHVILLE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN UP IN ARMS ABOUT CARLENE CARTER FOREVER. DO YOU DELIBERATELY COURT CONTROVERSY OR IS IT ALL JUST A MISUNDERSTANDING?

"It's a misunderstanding (laughs). Seriously. I definitely don't consider myself to be a sex kitten or a sex pot by any means. I think I'm more like a country cheerleader."

WHAT ABOUT THE ALBUM, BLUE NUN (1981), HILARIOUSLY DESCRIBED IN ONE MUSIC REFERENCE BOOK AS "AN EXPLICIT CELEBRATION OF SEX"?

"Oh my God! You know that album was considered so sexy that wouldn't even put it out in America. But all the time my tongue was just rooted in my cheek. It was a bit of fun. Nothing more."

YOU MUST FIND COUNTRY MUSIC, OR AT LEAST SOME OF THE MORE TRADITIONAL ASPECTS OF IT, A LITTLE TOO CONSERVATIVE. DO YOU THINK COUNTRY MUSIC COULD EVER PRODUCE ITS OWN VERSION OF MADONNA?

"They'd never stand for it. Look at all the people who are hugely successful in the country field. They're all very down to earth, because that's what the people that are buying their records are looking for. Take Martina McBride; she's real pretty, she's got a great voice, but she's not overly sexy. They don't like that sort of thing in Nashville. They don't! I don't even spend that much time thinking about how I look. It's not like I parade around wearing low-cut dresses and flaunting my tits. People think I do but I don't. I remember my old record company phoning me up the night before I went on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and telling me not to wear anything low-cut. I didn't intend to but I felt insulted that they would even consider trying to dictate what I should wear, Christ! I was 36 years old at the time."

SURELY IT'S THE MINI SKIRTS THAT HAVE CAUSED THE MOST OFFENSE?

"I've been wearing them since I was 14 years old. I never actually went up to the midi skirt, that fashion just passed me by. I actually find mini skirts more comfortable. I wear shorts under them, so it's not as if I'm flaunting my private parts. But even over-the-knee socks can be taken as really sexy and dangerous in country music. I just want to be able to be myself, even if that means offending people that are really straight. People should just know that I'm just having fun. I'm not out there to steal their husbands."

YOUR PERSONAL LIFE AND YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE SEEM TO BE ALMOST PERMANENTLY ENTWINED.

"Oh yes. It's not deliberate, but it just happened that I started working with Nick and ended up marrying him. Howie Epstein (producer of Little Love Letters and guitarist with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) and I are boyfriend and girlfriend now, which means that we've got another of these working and romantic relationships. We've actually agreed not to do the next record together (Epstein first worked with Carlene on 1990's I Fell In Love album). So I'm working with James Stroud next time. We've just recorded a new single called Something Already Gone for the soundtrack to the new Mel Gibson movie Maverick. We've just started work on the video."

YOU'VE DABBLED IN ACTING BEFORE (A SHORT FILM FOR TOO DRUNK TO REMEMBER, A ROLE IN THE LONDON MUSICAL PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES). IS THIS A CAREER YOU'D EVER SERIOUSLY CONSIDER?

"Well I'm definitely not a frustrated actress. I get my frustrations out in my videos. Acting is such hard work, that there is not way I would want to do it every day. With rock videos it's getting to the point where every possible theme has been explored, so it's difficult for a rock video to be different. One of the things that's comforting about country is that they haven't done it all yet. So I'm always looking for ideas outside that field of music. Especially in Europe, where videos are a lot different from those in the States."

WHEN YOU LISTEN TO COUNTRY RADIO OR SWITCH ON CMT WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE COMPETITION?

"I don't know. There are so many artists out there now. Everyone's looking for a quick turnover and a fast buck. To be honest, there's not many new country acts I can recognize just by hearing their voices. So many of the guys look and sound alike. But don't ask me which ones, because if I don't like them, I don't bother trying to find out who they are. I think the industry's in danger of over-saturating the market--God, I'm probably going to get killed for saying this--but I think they're going for quantity over quality. Country music has always been a well-respected medium. You're in country and you have a fan, then they're a fan for life. And that's how it was for George Jones, Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash..."

HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEW JOHNNY CASH ALBUM?

"I must be the only person in the world who hasn't. Which is kinda embarrassing. Y'know I've got a song on there, but I didn't get a credit. Nick and I wrote it some time ago in London and he's conveniently forgotten that I did it with him."

LASTLY, ANYTHING ELSE TO DECLARE?

"Well, we're playing somewhere called The Forum in London on June 30. Did that used to be called The Town And Country Club? I've got a great band with me for this: Al Anderson from NRBQ on lead guitar, Howie (Epstein) on rhythm guitar. I'm calling this group The Not-Quite-Ready-For-The-Opry Players. See you there."