463 The Carter Family “Can the Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye)” 1935

“A.P. (1893-1960), as he was best known to his listening audience, provided an inexhaustible supply of songs, many of which he collected from Appalachia’s remote mountain homesteads…and then ‘worked up’ with his wife, Sara (1899-1979), and sister-in-law Maybelle (1909-1978). It was Sara’s rich, expressive alto that had first attracted a producer from Victor records. At forty, she was still a riveting, dark-eyed beauty. Maybelle, the twenty-nine-year-old guitar player, was the virtuoso of the group, a fact which astonished many listeners of the 1930s, who would not believe that the agile licks and infectious rhythms were conjured by a woman” (Mark Zwonitzer, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone, 2002).

The Carter Family “Can the Circle Be Unbroken”