"Mother" Maybelle Carter (May 10, 1909 – October 23, 1978) was an American country musician and "among the first" to use the Carter scratch, with which she "helped to turn the guitar into a lead instrument." It was named after her. She was a member of the original Carter Family act from the late 1920s until the early 1940s and a member of the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle group.
She was born Maybelle Addington in Nickelsville, Virginia, the daughter of Margaret Elizabeth (née Kilgore; 1879–1960) and Hugh Jackson Addington (1877–1929). By the time she was 12 years old, Maybelle was well versed in the traditional hill-country songs of the region and had become a skilled and original guitarist and autoharpist. When she was 17, she married Ezra .J. Carter, and they moved to Poor Valley, Virginia.
To great local acclaim, Maybelle Carter began performing with the Carter Family at community gatherings and church events. The Carter Family were formed in 1927 by her brother-in-law, A. P. Carter, who was married to her cousin Sara, also a part of the trio. The Carter Family was one of the first commercial rural country music groups. Maybelle helped create the group's unique sound with her innovative style of guitar playing, using her thumb to play the melody on the bass strings and her index finger to fill out the rhythm. Her technique, sometimes known as the Carter Scratch, influenced the guitar's shift from rhythm to lead instrument and her innovative playing style would eventually be imitated by countless country and folk guitarists.
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| Carter Family 1939 |
In 1927 the group won a contract with RCA Victor Records. Recordings and radio broadcasts brought the Original Carter Family (as they are now known) fame throughout the country. The group stopped performing in 1943, but Maybelle Carter formed a new group with her daughters. From 1943 to 1948, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters were featured performers on the Richmond, Virginia, radio program Old Dominion Barn Dance. In 1950 they began performing on WSM’s Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, and they soon became stars. Maybelle was widely respected as a matriarchal figure in country music circles and was popularly known as "Mother Maybelle." However, she was only in her forties.
Many of their recordings from the time, such as “Wabash Cannonball” and “Wildwood Flower,” are considered classics of country music. In the late 1950s the daughters stopped performing, but Carter remained with the Opry until 1967.
Maybelle and her daughters toured as "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle," but after the death of A. P. Carter in 1960, the group revived the name "The Carter Family." The folk revival of the late 1960s revitalized interest in the Original Carter Family, and Carter performed at the Newport Folk Festivals of 1963 and 1967. She briefly reunited with former Carter Family member Sara Carter during the 1960s folk music craze, with Sara singing lead and Maybelle providing harmony as before in their 1966 reunion album.
They frequently toured with Johnny Cash, her son-in-law, from 1968 on. The group performed regularly on Cash's weekly network variety show from 1969 to 1971. In 1970, in no small part owing to Carter’s innovations, the group was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. During the 1970s Carter continued to perform to appreciative audiences across the country and in Europe. Carter made occasional solo recordings during the 1960s and 1970s, usually full-length albums. Her final such work, a two-record set released on Columbia Records, placed on Billboard's best-selling country albums chart in 1973 when she was 64. Maybelle was also featured on The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1972 recording Will the Circle Be Unbroken.
After the album took off, the Dirt Band decided to bring a third incarnation of the Carter Family, featuring Maybelle and various configurations of her daughters and grandchildren, on tour. They knew that there could be no substitute for the presence of a musical mentor who taught everyone what they needed to know to move the picking tradition forward. The Carter Family (Maybelle, Helen, June, and Anita) received the "Favorite Country Group" trophy from the American Music Awards in 1973. The following year Maybelle was individually honored with the first Tex Ritter Award by the International Fan Club Organization at Fan Fair in Nashville, TN.
Maybelle Carter died in October 23, 1978, in Nashville Tennessee, after a few years of poor health and was interred next to her husband, Ezra, in Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Two of their daughters – Helen and Anita – are buried nearby. By 1992 Maybelle Carter was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame. In 2005, The Carter Family received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
(Edited from Wikipedia , Britannica & NPR Music)