A biography for Carlene Carterhasn’t been written yet.
“Lots of girls marry at 16 in Tennessee.”
“There was a period where I was a little scared that I'd blown my chance.”
“There's something unnatural about losing a sibling when they're young.”
“I learned how to sing in front of a lot of people and to hone my skills alongside some of the greatest performers of all time.”
“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.”
“The first five albums I did, I tried a little bit of everything. I was trying not to conform at all.”
“I wanted to play rocking country music, and when I started out in the late Seventies, it took me a couple of albums to figure out how to do that.”
“I've always had wanderlust to try and do different things, but I always return to the music of the Carter family.”
“I got into photography when my kids were little, and I continued talking pictures over the years.”
“If someone asked me to do something I didn't want to do or didn't think was right, I wouldn't do it.”
“My Smiths, my Carters, the Cashes - everybody embraced me and held my arms up when I couldn't do it myself.”
“When I first came out, country wouldn't touch me because I was way too rock, and rock wouldn't touch me because I was definitely country.”
“I never, by any regard, ever denied any part of my family roots.”
“Don't try to be like somebody else. You'll be miserable. You need to be yourself, and don't ever get a big head.”
“Even city people have ancestors who had their hands in the dirt.”
“I fly from the seat of my pants, basically.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The first time I went on stage as an adult was touring with the Johnny Cash Show. I'd sang as a child. But my grown-up initiation was as part of that band.”
“I don't have any regrets at all.”