suffered from a tremor in his right hand, which his mother ascribed a lightning strike when she was pregnant.

"[1] On June 18, 1915, he married Sara Dougherty; they had three children: Gladys (Millard), Janette (Jett), and Joe.

Carter was often accompanied by his friend Lesley Riddle, collecting and blending songs, particularly from Appalachian musicians, and from attending church services in many isolated localities, the source of the Carter Family's many religious songs.

One of their stops was in Bristol, Tennessee, just a few miles from Maces Spring, and the Carter Family went there to record some songs, which soon became popular country-wide.

was away from home for long periods in his job as a traveling salesman—and his search for new musical ideas.

Carter died in Kingsport, Tennessee, on November 7, 1960, after long illness, at the age of 68.

Vernon United Methodist Church cemetery in the Maces Springs area of Hiltons, Virginia.

[6][7] Despite dying in relative obscurity, A. P. Carter was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

In recent years, Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, has performed a play by Douglas Pote based on A.P.

On her 2008 album All I Intended to Be, Emmylou Harris includes the song "How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower", co-written with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, about the relationship between A.P.

Carter and performed by the Carter Family in 1931, was revived in 2009 when Lulu and the Lampshades created a reworked version, using the cup game as percussion, titled "Cups (When I'm Gone)," which in turn was famously covered by Anna Kendrick for her 2012 film "Pitch Perfect".

Vernon Methodist Church are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as components of the Carter Family Thematic Resource.