Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Whenever I've not known what to do, I've always gone back to the Carter Family because there was nothing like singing with my aunts and my mom to my grandma.
Everyone deals with loss. I'm no different, but we all find our ways of coming through things. Is it tough? Of course, but you find the strength to push on through.
MusiCares was really good to me. I can't say enough how MusiCares helps other people. They really, really helped me. They have the greatest groups and support for musicians in recovery.
I think, looking back, there was a lot of fear of success in me. When you are successful, you have to keep it up... it requires you to be responsible, and I had been pretty irresponsible.
I wood-shedded for a year to play Grandma's simple stuff. It's not that simple, and I don't use picks the way she does. But I played them as authentically as I could, with the flat-picking.
It's a matriarchal family, the Carters. A.P. was the original head of the Carter family, but the women were always strong. There were no questions asked in that regard; you had better be strong.
I've always been one to throw caution to the wind, and my motto has been, 'Never have a dull moment.' Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but I don't think I'd have it much differently.
Working with Mellencamp, I made new fans, people that may have never heard of me. They may have heard I was related to the Carter Family or Johnny Cash somehow, but what they got was pure Carlene.
I was always in a big hurry to do everything. Before I was 20, I was married twice and had two kids. But I don't regret any of it. I learned a lot about myself. I had a lot to say for someone my age, real early on.
When I'm on stage, I know exactly where I am. It's not an ego thing or anything like that, but I am more in my body and aware of myself and aware of what I'm doing, and I feel more from that, from sharing the music.
I grew up on the side of the stage. I never had a fear of an audience. I never felt like they were separated from us. We were all in the living room, and it happens to be a big living room. I continue to operate on that assumption.
I was thinking about it: so many of my stories are about my family life, not about being related to a lot of famous people. That's my grandma, that's my mama, my daddy, my aunt, my uncle, my stepdaddy. I'd probably tell them even if they weren't well known.
My grandma passed in '78, and that's the year I started recording. It's also the year that my dad retired from his career. So it's funny how torches get passed on, and you feel a responsibility to be connected to the music that they did and try to carry it on in your own way.
I do feel I'm responsible to carrying on the music. That's what I was charged with as a kid. When I was a little girl, I was told, 'When we are gone' - when you're a kid, you never think they'll ever be gone - 'you have to keep the music alive, the Carter Family songs, and add your own songs.'