June Carter Cash

Wildwood Flower (Dualtone)

A A A Comments By Laura Bond Thursday, Oct 2 2003

Wildwood Flower's liner notes are reason enough to recommend the final recording by June Carter Cash, who died from complications of heart surgery in April. Penned by stepdaughter and songwriter Rosanne Cash, they eulogize Carter Cash as a unique and loving mother and musician who for nearly 40 years nurtured the art and stormy soul of one of country music's most storied performers. And though she was an accomplished autoharpist, writer of both songs and books, and a descendant of country music's first family, Carter Cash will best be remembered as the wife of Johnny Cash.

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Yet Wildwood Flower shows us how much country music lost with Carter Cash's passing. Recorded over six months, from late 2002 to March of this year, the album is a memorial to a life shaped equally by music and family. Wildwood Flower abounds in world-wise visions of songs she performed thousands of times over the past six decades. Most of the tunes were penned by uncle A.P. Carter -- including "Keep on the Sunny Side," "Storms Are on the Ocean," and "Sinking in the Lonesome Sea." The intro to "Big Yellow Peaches," the sole Carter Cash composition included here, is a humorous riff on Lee Marvin that suggests the wit and fearlessness of the woman who co-wrote "Ring of Fire."

Wildwood Flower is as roughly rendered and scratchy as a historic photograph. Produced by son John Carter Cash, the album eschews smooth production in favor of familial intimacy. Some of the songs, including the spare spooky "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?" were taped in June and Johnny's bedroom in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Cameos by members of the ever-sprawling Carter/Cash lineage -- including daughters Rosanne and Carlene Carter, granddaughter Tiffany Anastasia Lowe, and, of course, Johnny, who sings backup on almost every track -- lend the album the casual feel of a living-room concert.

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