Carlene Carter Fan Club: Press

ALBUM: CARLENE CARTER, STRONGER *****

There's not a dud note in earshot here, whether she's essaying high-stepping, Burrito-esque hillbilly rockers or more traditional-toned pieces in mandolin, dobro and autoharp. Comeback of the year, no contest...

CARLENE CARTER, STRONGER
4 OUT OF 5 STARS

Comeback Album Of The Year!
It's something of a minor miracle that this talented and feisty lady has emerged from the brink of personal demons to deliver an album of hope, optimism and such high quality. If there was any kind of justice in the music world, this would be all over the mainstream country radio airwaves...

CARLENE CARTER GROWS "STRONGER"

It's been a long, long time since one of the heirs of the Carter Family heritage has been heard from musically... (Click the link below to read this in-depth article and interview with Carlene!)

CD REVIEWS: CARLENE CARTER, "STRONGER"

Musically speaking, Carter sounds as strong as she’s ever been. A magnificent, and welcome, return...

CARLENE CARTER CONFRONTS HER GRIEFS AND JOYS IN STRONGER

After Drug Problems and Deaths of Loved Ones, She Faces Life With Humor and a Firm Resolve...

MUSIC REVIEWS: CARLENE CARTER, "STRONGER" ***1/2

She returns with a confident new album grounded in the bedrock country that is her birthright as a member of the storied Carter family. Here's hoping she's home to stay...

NASHVILLE SKYLINE: CARLENE CARTER CELEBRATES SURVIVAL

She Is Stronger in a Personal and Musical Return...

MORE THAN A COUNTRY SONG, IT'S CARLENE CARTER'S LIFE

Pain and loss were the singer's constant companions. But the daughter of June Carter Cash found the strength to return to songwriting...

NEW RECORDINGS:
CARLENE CARTER,
"STRONGER" (***1/2)

"I'm so cool," Carlene Carter brags, with her usual wink, on the frisky number of the same title from her first album in 13 years. Back in the early '90s, the daughter of June Carter Cash and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash really did seem like the coolest chick in country. Now back on her feet - and a grandmother, to boot - the former Mrs. Nick Lowe sounds as if she is again...

CARLENE CARTER, "STRONGER"
RATING: 8 OUT OF 10

The former author of “Little Love Letters” is stronger now and could write a book with what she knows. Good thing for us that she’s made a record instead because she’s a first-rate performer and songwriter...

CARLENE CARTER WEATHERS STORMS AND RETURNS 'STRONGER' - THREE STARS

She even dusts off "I'm So Cool" from 1980's Musical Shapes, delivering its swaggering punchline, "They got the balls and I got the bat," like a scrapper who's back in the game...

***1/2 CARLENE CARTER: "STRONGER" (YEP ROC)

Carter's first album since 1995 is, indeed, one of her strongest albums ever; it's certainly her most personal...

CARLENE CARTER 'STRONGER' THAN HURT

"Stronger," out Tuesday, has the kick and luster of Carter's best songs from the '80s and '90s. It's an ironically joyous, even witty CD, filled with the kind of rollicking roots rock that extends the great American legacy that lives in Carter's genes...

"STRONGER" - CARLENE CARTER ****

Stronger is one of her best and most personal albums to date. She's made a disc that's as lively as her music of the '80s and '90s without sidestepping the emotional gravity that informs her new material. Stronger shows she still has spunk and fire to spare, while also revealing a hard-won maturity and strength that richly, truly earns her the over-used appellation of "survivor"...

MUSIC REVIEW: CARLENE CARTER, "STRONGER"

CHECK THIS OUT: The title cut is an emotionally moving tribute to the singer's younger sister, the late Rosey Carter, that will melt the coldest of hearts...

WITH DYNAMIC SOUND, CARTER IS 'STRONGER' THAN EVER

If there were ever a story to break your heart, Carlene Carter could tell it to you...

CARLENE CARTER "STRONGER" ****

The lineage of Carlene Carter speaks for itself, but her own solo work has been criminally underappreciated over the course of her career. Truly, few artists have been able to bridge the divide between country and pop as compellingly as Carter. Her 1980 masterpiece, Musical Shapes, combined the new wave influence of then-husband Nick Lowe with the country-rock style of Gram Parsons, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris; listening to modern country, it's an album that's still ahead of its time some 28 years later, and one wonders if Nashville will ever really catch up to it...

"STRONGER" - 2008 YEP ROC

While definitely among Carter's best work, it may well stand as one of the best albums of this year...

"STRONGER" - CARLENE CARTER

Carter holds nothing back, and in the full-frontal performances shows the mettle that makes her a true crucible of June Carter Cash’s legacy. With “It Takes On To Know Me,” originally written for stepfather Johnny Cash, the dandelion-voiced songstress calls her own fouls, owns the detours and recognizes that not all lives are lived in straight lines...

TRAX: CARLENE CARTER, "STRONGER" (YEP ROC)

On her first proper album in more than a decade, a triumphantly sober Carter trades in youthful spunk for mature grit. While "Stronger" isn't as stormy as stepsister Roseanne Cash's "Black Cadillac," it's similarly cathartic, inspired by the loss of mom June Carter Cash & stepdad Johnny Cash, Carter's ex-boyfriend and younger sister Rosey. Should appeal to Carter-Cash clan followers as well as commercial country fans of Martina McBride and Faith Hill...

CARLENE CARTER "STRONGER" CD - SUN RATING: 3 1/2 out of 5

By fusing catchy choruses with downhome twang and sweet harmonies, Carter deftly straddles the fence between classic country and pop. Welcome her back...

CARLENE CARTER TO RELEASE FIRST ALBUM OF NEW ORIGINALS IN 13 YEARS

On March 4, Carlene Carter--now a senior member of the first family of country music--will release her first album of new material since 1995...

NEW CD REVIEWS: "STRONGER" *** 1/2

She's crafted a solid album reflecting on her losses and celebrating the love that got her through the tough times. Carter has always had a knack for mixing pop, country-rock and traditional sounds, and here she pulls it off again. The emotional centerpiece is the title cut, which recalls her departed sister. Carter's stark, brave vocals are nothing short of stunning...

"STRONGER" CD REVIEW

This isn’t Carter coming back, this is our fair lady roaring back, in touch with the press on spirit that guided her mom and led her granny to invent country music. This is the kind of hard charging music you want to release into today’s deconstructed music business if you really want to make an impact. Betcha this is the comeback story of the year...

LISTEN UP: "STRONGER" CD REVIEW

Carlene Carter’s first CD of new material since 1995, Stronger, is an independent woman’s coming-to-terms-with-the-world-of-broken-hearts collection of country and occasionally country-rock songs...

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: THE WEEKLY MIX OF NEW, RECENT AND FORTHCOMING ALBUMS

Carlene Carter, Stronger (out March 4): First album in more than a decade for the Carter Family scionette and rebel country star, after a succession of travails, so it's great to hear her again. Maybe not quite the sass of her younger days (understandably), but plenty of fine uptempo material and affecting ballads.

CARLENE CARTER RELEASING NEW CD IN 2008

Carlene Carter will release Stronger, her first album of new material since 1995, on Yep Roc Records early next year...

TODAY'S COUNTRY

Nashville, TN -- Carlene Carter is putting the finishing touches on her latest album, "Stronger." It should come out early next year...

JOHNNY CASH'S STEPDAUGHTER TURNS GRIEF INTO HEARTFELT ALBUM

Rather than quit music, the country rocker with the blue ribbon pedigree poured her broken heart into writing songs for a new album, "Stronger," her first collection of new material in 11 years...

AMERICAN BEAT: CARLENE CARTER / "I FELL IN LOVE" CD REISSUE

Carter’s 1990 comeback album found her making the transition from Rockpile babe to Heartbreakers babe with some cats like Dave Edmunds and Albert Lee along to blur the lines. Since Americana, 3A and roots were just marketing concepts on the horizon, this rocking, often rockabilly set got lumped under country where it fueled Carter’s most impressive commercial showing of her career (hopefully, this reissue will fuel the reissue of her follow up album which was her most satisfying album). This kick off to a great second act of her career is simply a fun, spirited set that holds a lot of charm and appeal and is ripe for rediscovery.

CARLENE CARTER - BACK IN THE FOLD

After a lifetime of highs and lows, Carlene Carter finds the key to survival at the core of her family tradition. (Great 9-page article by award-winning writer Silas House; with gorgeous new photographs by Thomas Petillo, and several old ones from the Fan Club archives. You can order the magazine from their website's "BUY OUR BACK ISSUES" page on the link below. Look for Issue #68 with The Shins on the cover.)

MIRANDA LAMBERT READIES NEW ALBUM

Miranda wrote or co-write eight of the eleven songs on the new disc, and she called on some pretty high-profile writers to round out the album. Patty Griffin and Gillian Welch contributed their works to the collection, and the closing song "Easy From Now On" was written by Carlene Carter and Susanna Clark and recorded by Emmylou Harris on her Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town album in 1978...

CARLENE CARTER "STRONGER" CD REVIEW

Miss Carlene's first CD of original material in a whopping 11 years finds her refreshed and still full of crackling fire. Her voice is a bit deeper now, richer in spots, and she's obviously done with her troubled past, which she puts to rest on the prophetic title cut. But for the edgy country-rocker you once knew, home in on "The Bitter End," "I'm So Cool" (dig that electric guitar!) and the sprightly "Break My Little Heart." The disc's available at www.carlenecarterfanclub.com.

ASHLEY MONROE

...she is related to both Carl Smith and the Carter Family on her father’s side, and Carlene’s “Me and the Wildwood Rose” was a big influence, as was Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors.”

TOP 10 CELEBRITY WEDDING RECEPTIONS OF 2006

Carlene Carter and Joe Brown-- The daughter of the late legend June Carter Cash followed a wedding ceremony on the late Johnny Cash's Jamaican estate with a reception at the 15th hole of the Ritz-Carlton Golf and Spa Resort.

FIELD REPORTINGS - UNBROKEN CIRCLES:

Music City fans offered a very warm reception to CARLENE CARTER on her return to full-tilt, band-backed club performing at the large modern honky tonk the Nashville Palace on August 26. She was in terrific form, salty and aggressive and in good voice, and winningly edgy again. Carlene came up with a new mix of rocking hits from her late '70s/early '80s chart heyday ("Every Little Thing", "I'm So Cool"), more traditional, acoustic Carter Family material ("Dixie Darlin'"), and a number of fine-sounding and varied new ballads, rockers and blues songs she's written for an upcoming CD, Stronger, produced by brother John Carter Cash and expected to be released next year.

2006 AMERICANA MUSIC ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE REPORT

Carlene Carter looked happy and sober and sounded better than ever. (Photo with article on link below.)

BORDER RADIO: ROOTS & AMERICANA

After a career that makes Courtney Love look like a PTA mom, Carlene Carter (grandchild of Maybelle, daughter of June) rebounded with a boisterous show that included tunes from her initial '80s heyday ("Cry"), her brush with mainstream stardom ("I Fell in Love") and a smattering of promising selections from her forthcoming Stronger.

RING OF FIRE: A NIGHT AT THE OPRY

Carlene attended opening night of the Broadway musical of Johnny Cash songs--full story on the PLAYBILL link below.

CARLENE CARTER WEDS AT CINNAMON HILL

Full story and photos at the link below. Also see "Carlene Carter Enjoys Wedding In Jamaica," and "Jamaica Regains Celebrity Status." The wedding was also reported in the March 27 issue of Country Weekly magazine.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 'WALK THE LINE' TOGETHER

Child actress Victoria Hester, 9, got her fill working on the movie "Walk the Line." She got her fill -- and then some -- of cranberry sauce, that is.

The so-called cranberry sauce scene is set at a Thanksgiving dinner table, with Victoria playing a young Carlene Carter, daughter to country music's June Carter and stepdaughter to the legendary "Man in Black," Johnny Cash. For the scene, the young actress, who was 8 when the movie was filmed, had to eat a heaping helping of cranberry sauce. Take after take, she did so, along with fellow child actor Katie Lindsey.

"Between each take, they would fill the plate up to make it just like it was before the last take and tell the girls to eat just like they did in the last take," recalled Victoria's mother, Michele Hester, who was raised in Mobile and also worked on the movie. Victoria was born in Mobile, but now lives with her family in Memphis, Tenn. "They made themselves sick eating cranberry sauce."

Filming began in June of 2004 and continued through July and into August before the Hesters received a call with good news. The filmmakers wanted Victoria to play the role of June's daughter, Carlene Carter, who went on to have a country music career of her own.

On the set, the young actress said, she had a great time -- all that cranberry sauce notwithstanding. As all school-aged children working in movies do, she had three hours of tutoring a day during the shooting, and she enjoyed meeting and working with famous people. Victoria met the real Carlene Carter, whom she characterized as being "very nice."

(This photo of Carlene and Victoria was taken by Patsy Elmore after Carlene's performance in "Wildwood Flowers" in Nashville, TN in July 2005. Thank you very much to Patsy for sharing her photo with the Fan Club!)

CAN WITHERSPOON WALK THE LINE?

According to June Carter Cash's daughter, the country singer Carlene Carter, there were bits of her mother that existed in Reese Witherspoon even before the actress embarked on her June Carter Cash immersion course. "When Reese smiles, it's like she's smiling from inside - my mom was like that," said Carter, in a recent telephone interview. In 2004, she spent several hours with Witherspoon at the kitchen table of her half-brother John Carter Cash's Nashville home offering up scores of "Mama-isms" - as well as a pair of frilly white pantaloons that her mother wore onstage for comic effect and that Witherspoon incorporated into her wardrobe for the movie.

Before she died, in 2003, Carter Cash had already expressed her satisfaction about the casting of Witherspoon. Others, though, said Carter, had their doubts about whether Witherspoon was up to the dramatic challenge of capturing the singer's famous soulful, earthbound essence. "They'd say, 'Well, she's blond and she's this and that,' " said Carter. "I'd tell them, 'Well, you know what? Until a month ago, I was blond, too.' "

COUNTRY WEEKLY NEWS: FRAGRANT FLOWERS

(Photo copyright 2005 Daniel Coston.) I went to a musical the other night and pure joy broke out. The musical was "Wildwood Flowers: The June Carter Story" at Nashville's BellSouth Acuff Theatre. And the pure joy came from Carlene Carter portraying her mother, June, through songs and down-home dialogue. Carlene, the daughter of June and Country Music Hall of Famer Carl Smith, was magnificent, creating a believable and loving portrait of her mother. And the music took you on a wonderful, historic journey through the lives of Mother Maybelle Carter, portrayed by Gina Stewart; Anita Carter, played by Anita's real-life daughter, Lorrie Davis Bennett; and Helen Carter (Janet McMahan). If this musical rolls into a town near you, don't miss it!

CATCHING UP WITH CARLENE CARTER

She Stars In New Musical As Her Mother, June Carter Cash...

THE JUNE CARTER STORY TOLD IN NEW MUSICAL

Wildwood Flowers Stars Her Daughter Carlene Carter...