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.)


Carlene Carter's background demanded that she should naturally assume the role that her family has played for so long; with a musical history stretching way back into the dark it could only be expected that she'd carry the family's name into the eighties. Not so obvious was the path she has chosen to tread. With her roots so fimrly entrenched in country music it must have come as quite a shock to her family and friends alike that the lady should stray not only from country musick but from Nashville itself. That in England she recorded with arguably the best band we've known for nearly a year, namely The Rumour, only adds to the fact that she does not see herself following the same road as many of her Nashville contemporaries.

DARK STAR spoke to the 'Nashville rebel' last summer while she was on a short promotional visit to England. Carlene was only too eager to explain why she has dug up her roots and expanded what would surely have become a restricted role for a talent such as hers...

Dark Star: The Carter Family toured here about eight years ago; were you with them?
Carlene Carter: No, I've never been here with them; you're probably thinking of my younger sister, Rosey.

Is that Rosey Nix?
Uh huh. That's my little sister, she's a real good singer.

Going back just a little further; were you aware of the Johnny Cash/Bob Dylan sessions in Nashville?
Yeah, because Dylan stayed at our house part of the time. I was only twelve at the time. His wife was the first lady I ever saw nurse a baby. He was real quiet, he never said anything to us, but then again, what can you say to a twelve-year-old kid except maybe, 'Do you want to sit on my lap.' When he left he gave my sister and myself these little hand-painted jewelry boxes. I didn't realise the importance of them at the time. My sister's still got hers but I've no idea where mine is. I guess his wife bought them, he probably had no idea about them, but they were apparently from him.

Where you aware of the actual music Cash and Dylan were recording at the time?
I went to a few sessions, but really I only knew what was going on from the dinner table. But from what I understood they were pretty terrible. They used to have these parties at our house where everyone would sit around and pass a guitar around and everyone would sing a new song. I remember one night when Dylan sang 'Lay Lady Lay' and Joni Mitchell sang 'Both Sides Now', which was already known, Graham Nash sang 'Marrakesh Express' and James Taylor was there singing 'Sweet Baby James'. All these people were there.

It must have all seemed strange at the time.
Actually it wasn't strange at all, it seemed real normal.

So you weren't overawed by all thse people dropping by all the time.
Well, I was to a certain extent, but to me musicians weren't strange abnormal pople because my parents and all my family were musicians. so people who weren't musicians seemed abnormal to me. The only time I was ever shocked was when Steppenwolf came to our house. They just decided they wanted to meet John. I looked out of my bedroom window and this big black limousine pulled up and all these hairy yobs started pouring into the house. When I was fourteen I fell in love with Eric Clapton's piano player, Bobby Whitlock. They played on John's TV show and I thought he was the neatest guy, but I was so scared of him and Eric that I never even said hello to them.

Did you feel it could hold you back rather than help you, being one of the Carter family?
Well, there's no way it could really hold me back, but at the same time, the only way it can help me personally is by background, like watching them all the time, what they have done and everything. Musically, there isn't much they have done for me as far as I'm concerned; career wise, absolutely nothing.

Did you feel you could have been typecast?
That's it. I was real determined to be Carlene Carter and not June Carter's daughter. They're still my parents but as far as everything else goes, they're just my parents. They're great musicians at what they do but what I do is not the same thing. Someone asked me if they were gonna be on my record and I tried to think of something they could do 'cause I thought it would be really neat having them on my record. But there was no place on the whole album where there was anything for them to do, so it didn't happen, it just wasn't their scene.

Dave Edmunds was going to produce the whole album at one stage, wasn't he?
Yeah, we went into the studios and did some stuff together but it wasn't far enough into what I wanted my whole LP to sound like. There was a lot of real good stuff we did, he had some great ideas but I had some things I wanted to do that weren't coming out of that group of people, so in order to remain friends I felt we should stop working together. He's one of my best friends so there are no hard feelings there at all.

You cut Rodney Crowell's 'Never Together But Close Sometimes'...
Yeah. Rodney and I are friends. He came over with me at the beginning when I was working with Dave but he left before I stopped working with Dave. Rodney and I came over with about ten songs that we'd worked out together and that was the only one that ended up on the album.

Was Rodney going to be on the album?
The tracks that I did with Dave, Rodney played and sang on.

Have they been scrapped now?
Not totally, we've still got them. The only one of Dave's Rodney's not on is 'I Once Knew Love' which we cut the day he left and that was the best track of what we did as far as fitting on the LP goes. The other stuff is far more Dave Edmunds oriented. Dave and I love each other so much and had so much respect for one another that I could never say, 'That's not what I should do,' because what he was saying was great, but not for what I wanted. I think he and I will do a country duet some day. The night we cut 'I Once Knew Love' was the night I first met Nick Lowe. I already knew Terry Williams because he had worked with us earlier. The bass player we were using got sick and Dave gave Nick a call and asked him if he would come and play.

What made you decide to record in England?
Because we wanted to do something totally different. I knew that if I recorded in Nashville that I'd end up like all the other girl singers. I wanted to do something totally left field. If an English girl was here recording with The Rumour it wouldn't be different but I was from Nashville and basically a pretty country chick so it was pretty left field. I needed to do something like that because I wanted to be myself and this way I had no influences at all because I didn't know anybody here. Most female singers are formulised at the moment; we wanted to do something that would be fun, different and spontaneous without any influences coming from anywhere. I don't think any of The Rumour have worked with a girl before. Anyone in Nashville can get Reggie Young or Mac Gayden, but no-one in Nashville gets The Rumour.

Is it causing interest back in the States?
They can't believe it, I'm the country rebel. It wasn't meant to be rebellious but I just couldn't hang in there and do it.

Was the Warner Bros. contract signed here or in the States?
I signed the contract on an airplane, a 747 Air India, we were all too high to land that day, just running around having fun.

Was it a conscious thing to have a balance between numbers of your own and non-originals?
I intended when we started to only use two of my songs, because I felt some of my songs were too country for the LP, and some we did try and cut came out too country, but as it ended up the band picked two more of my songs that they wanted to do; I was real happy that they did. I also tried to pick songs for the album that I wish I had written; I didn't want to get into a rut of being the singer-songwriter. I do want to do that, but I didn't want to pick stuff that wasn't as good just because I'd written it.

You recorded a Tracy Nelson song and a Michael Bacon song; is that an indication of your personal taste in music?
I've listened to Tracy's music for a long time and she's also a good friend. I went out on the road with her last January just before I came over to record and she had just written 'I've Been There Before'. I listened to her set every night and out of all her stuff in the set that was the best song, so I asked her if I could do it and she said 'Sure.' She ended up doing one of mine which is not on my album and I ended up doing one of hers that is on her album. Tracy and myself did my song as a duet on her LP; it's like two women talking about the same man. I didn't write it like that but it sounds like that sung as a duet. It's really strange for me to sing with Tracy; I felt like Minnie Mouse, she has this huge Goliath voice. She's my favorite singer but I didn't think I could ever sing with her. The reason I cut the Michael Bacon/Thomas Cain number, 'Alabama Morning', was because Michael has a studio in his house in Nashville and that's where I did all my demos to pitch to other people. I was into this songwriting trip and he and Thomas had this group and 'Alabama Morning' was their opening song and it used to give me cold chills every time I heard it. When I first said I wanted to do it I was kinda scared, I thought you had to weigh about 300 pounds and be black to sing that song, but I soon found out I was probably able to sing anything I wanted to. I'll probably always do Michael Bacon songs as long as he keeps writing, he writes real good songs. I had about four of his that we picked but I tried to be fair and spread it out in the end, I guess.

It's a silly question, but how did Graham Parker's 'Between You And Me' come about?
Well, we cut four tracks the first night we were in the studio and the last one was 'Between You And Me'. After the first three we were really groovin' and the band said 'Hey! There's a song of Graham's that you could do.' They played it to me and I liked it so they went and cut it 'cause they knew it anyway and I learned it right there, it was real spontaneous. Then I went back to the States and while I was away they went back in the studio and re-cut it, they flet they hadn't done as well as they could do, and Graham went in and sang over the track because I wasn't here. It was real funny, him singing his song in my key, you should have heard that! I wanted to make it a duet and keep sticking him in there all the time but I was afraid he'd get mad because it was in the wrong key for him and he sounded like a little chipmunk.

How did the two Clover tunes, 'Love Is Gone' and 'Mr. Moon', get on the record?
They came from Brinsley and Bob Andrews. They played me Clover's stuff and I really liked it. Martin Belmont, Brinsley, Bob and myself all sat down in a hotel room with loads of material and listened to everything and picked out our favourites, then we went into the studio and played them to Andrew Bodnar and Steve Goulding and we all had to agree on a song before we ended up doing it. I'm going to have to meet these Clover boys sometime. I'll tell you, I've heard so many stories about them, especially Johnny Ciambotti, from Nick Lowe, and Nick said if I ever wanted a good-looking guy in my band I should get Alex Call. So I want to see what he looks like 'cause if Nick Lowe says he's good-looking, he's bound to be just beautiful; but I'd really never heard of them until Brinsley and the boy kept telling me about them.

The similarities between The Rumour and The Band are at times quite phenomenal...
That might have something to do with the fact that Brinsley listens to The Band constantly. But even though they idolise The Band they still have their own identity. There's absolutely nothing I could say against The Rumour because they're just great, and they're also great producers. I'm going to go home and get a band as good as The Rumour and The Band because now I've been spoiled. I'm going to tour the States with The Rumour, then I'm going to get my own band. Graham Parker's going to Australia and stuff and I can't keep borrowing his band on their holidays or no-one will ever get any rest. It's really funny because I'm going to tour the States with a British band and when I come back here I'm going to bring an American band.

What about English dates?
Martyn Smith, Carlene's manager: Well, if we come over, we wouldn't just do supports in big halls, we'd do some of our own dates, maybe colleges or something.

Carlene: Yeah, all those young boys!

There hasn't been much attempt to get you press on this flying visit...
Martyn Smith: Well, we've been wating by the phone...

Carlene: And look what happens, they set up two interviews on the last day.

It was purely by chance that we were talking to the Warners press office about the album and they mentioned that you were here, so we seized the opportunity...
Carlene: I'm convinced they think I'm this dumb American chick, somebody's girl-friend or something. They think I don't have anything to say. They were really quite shocked that I could talk to five people in a row, most of whom asked the same questions. But I don't mind at all, I could talk forever...

Martyn Smith: The trouble with the WEA press office is that there aren't enough of them for the amount of work they do.

Carlene: The trouble is, I think, they're very used to people not wanting to do interviews. I don't see how people can expect to sell records if they won't toalk to anyone.

The rock press in England, especially the weeklies, has a very big influence.
Carlene: Yeah, but what's real funny is every time I read NME, all they do is put people down and that's really sad 'cause there's something good in most things they pull down. They've got this horrible feeling of power.

They expect rock stars to do the 'macho' bit...
Carlene: Yeah! I hate it, they're all just posers.

Footnote: The last we heard, Carlene had realised her hopes to meet with Clover to the effect that she was rehearsing for an American tour backed up by John McFee, Johnny Ciambotti, Sean Hopper and Kevin Wells; the plan being to tour in the early months of this year, then go into the studio to record her second album in April.