June carter cash johnny cash biography

(1929-2003)

Who Was June Carter Cash?

June Carter Cash and her sisters performed as the Carter Sisters, with June singing and playing rhythm guitar. She and Johnny Cash had a number of hits, including "It Ain't Me Babe" and "If I Were a Carpenter." She married Cash in 1968, and their story made it to the big screen in the Cash biopic Walk the Line 37 years later, with Reese Witherspoon playing Carter Cash.

Musical Background

Singer-songwriter June Carter Cash was born Valerie June Carter on June 23, 1929, in Maces Springs, Virginia. The daughter of Ezra Carter and Mother Maybelle Carter, June was a born into the first family of country music. She and her sisters, Helen and Anita, performed as the Carter Sisters, with June singing, playing autoharp and rhythm guitar and keeping audiences entertained with her comedic wit.

In 1952, June married Carl Smith, with whom she performed at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, and they had a daughter, Rebecca Carlene. After their divorce, June toured with Elvis Presley and was briefly married to a local police officer, Edwin Nix, with whom she had another daughter, Rozanna who was called Rosie.

Meeting Johnny Cash

In the mid-1950s, June studied at The Actor's Studio in New York City, landing a role in 1958's Country Music Holiday, as well as guest spots on TV westerns and soap operas. But she returned to music with her mother and sisters in the early 1960s to work with Johnny Cash. June and Johnny had a number of hits, including "It Ain't Me Babe," "Jackson" and "If I Were a Carpenter." She married Cash on March 1, 1968, and their son, John Carter Cash, was born in 1970.

For much of the 1970s and 1980s June's career to a backseat to Johnny's. But in 1999, following what many believed to be her retirement, June reemerged with the album Press On, which won a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album. Four years later, Wildwood Flower netted her two Gr

American singer (1929–2003)

Musical artist

Valerie June Carter Cash (June 23, 1929 – May 15, 2003) was an American country singer and songwriter. A five-time Grammy award-winner, she was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. Prior to her marriage to Cash, she was known as June Carter and continued to be credited as such even after her marriage (as well as on songwriting credits predating it). She played guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp, and acted in several films and television shows. Carter Cash was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

Early life

June Carter Cash was born Valerie June Carter in Maces Spring, Virginia, to Maybelle (née Addington) and Ezra Carter. Her mother was a country music performer with June's aunt Sara and uncle A. P. Carter and she performed with the Carter Family from the age of 10, in 1939. In March 1943, when the Carter Family trio stopped recording together at the end of the WBT contract, Maybelle Carter, with encouragement from her husband Ezra, formed "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle" with her daughters, Helen on accordion, Anita Carter on bass fiddle and June on autoharp and as front person and comedian. The new group first aired on radio station WRNL in Richmond, Virginia, on June 1. Doc (Addington) and Carl (McConnell)—Maybelle's brother and cousin, respectively, known as "The Virginia Boys", joined them in late 1945. June, then 16, was a co-announcer with Ken Allyn and did the commercials on the radio shows for Red Star Flour, Martha White, and Thalhimers Department Store, just to name a few. For the next year {1946}, the Carters and Doc and Carl did show dates within driving range of Richmond, through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. She attended John Marshall High School during this period. June later said she had to work harder at her music than her sisters, bu

Easily the most iconic country music romance of all time, Johnny Cash and June Carter had a love story that transcended time, addiction, and the highs and lows of fame. From performing hit crossover songs ("Jackson"), to inspiring an Oscar-caliber movie about their relationship, Johnny Cash and June Carter remain to this day one of the most famous and celebrated relationships of the 20th century. But it wasn't always smooth sailing—both Cash and Carter overcame personal hurtles and industry obstacles that could have prevented their being together. Read on for a look at their romance.

June Carter

Born in Maces Springs, Virginia on June 23rd, 1929, Valerie June Carter was a musician born and bred. The daughter of Ezra and Maybelle Carter, her mother played with the successful country and folk group the Carter Family with June's uncle A.P. Carter and his wife Sara since 1927—by the time she was ten, little June was also contributing her voice to the band.

In the 1940s June, along with her mother and her two sisters, Helen and Anita, formed the act Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters (intermittently billed simply as the Carter Sisters) traveling the country, playing radio shows, and eventually joining the cast of the national country music showcase the Grand Ole Opry.

It was through the Opry that June met honky-tonk singer Carl Smith, whom she married in 1952. Together the two would have one daughter, Carlene, who would herself become a successful country musician.

Johnny Cash

J.R. Cash was born in Cleveland County,Arkansas on February 26, 1932. Cash would later take on the name John at the insistence of an Air Force recruiter who would not accept

Their story inspired iconic love songs and was recreated in an Oscar-nominated film. Johnny and June Carter Cash became the torch-bearers of deep, passionate love – country-music style. But the lovebirds navigated rough waters leading up to and during their 35-year marriage which produced one son, multiple hit songs about heartache, adoration and redemption, and ended when they took their final mortal bows within four months of each other.

They were both married when they first met

Johnny and June first met backstage at Nashville, Tennessee’s Grand Ole Opry in 1956, though it would be a dozen years before they would become husband and wife. Carter had been aware of Cash through the recommendations of Elvis Presley, with whom she had been singing backup. “Elvis would make me go into these little cafes and listen to John [on the jukebox] when we played in the south – in the Carolinas and all down through Florida and Georgia,” Carter reportedly said of how she initially became aware of music’s Man In Black.

“I can’t remember anything else we talked about, except his eyes,” she wrote in the liner notes of Cash’s 2000 box set, Love, God, Murder, of their first meeting at the Opry. “Those black eyes that shone like agates… He had a command of his performances that I had never before. Just a guitar and a bass and a gentle kind of presence that made not only me, but whole audiences become his followers.”

Cash remembers telling Carter he had “always wanted to meet her,” and was aware of her through her famous country music family: Her parents were Ezra Carter and Mother Maybelle Carter and June sang and performed as part of the Carter Sisters, a group composed of herself and siblings Helen and Anita.

Both were married to other people at the time of that first fateful meeting. Cash to Vivian Liberto Cash, with whom he had four daughters: Roseanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara.