Their first recordings were made in Bristol, Tennessee, for the Victor Talking Machine Company under producer Ralph Peer on August 1, 1927.

This was the day before country singer Jimmie Rodgers made his initial recordings for Victor under Peer.

The melody of the last was used for Roy Acuff's "The Great Speckled Bird", Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life" and Kitty Wells' "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels".

Throughout the group's career, Sara Carter sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar or autoharp.

In the early 1930s, he befriended Lesley "Esley" Riddle, a black guitar player from Kingsport, Tennessee.

and Sara (Janette and Joe Carter) and those of Maybelle (Helen, June, and Anita) joined the group for radio performances, by then in San Antonio, Texas.

In the fall of 1942, the Carters moved their program to WBT radio in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a one-year contract.

[6] Maybelle's brother, Hugh Jack (Doc) Addington Jr., and Carl McConnell, known as the Original Virginia Boys, also played music and sang on the radio show.

Chet Atkins joined them playing electric guitar in 1949 at WNOX radio in Knoxville, Tennessee.

They were featured on a 1987 television episode of Austin City Limits, along with June's husband Johnny Cash.

Notes: As important to country music as the family's repertoire of songs was Maybelle's guitar playing.

While Maybelle did use a flatpick on occasion, her major method of guitar playing was the use of her thumb (with a thumbpick) along with one or two fingers.

It has been noted that "by the end of the twenties, Maybelle Carter scratch ... was the most widely imitated guitar style in music.

[13] In 1988, the Carter Family was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and received its Award for the song "Will the Circle Be Unbroken".

Keep on the Sunny Side, a musical play chronicling the Carter Family's rise to stardom, premiered at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, in 2001.

Conceived and written by Douglas Pote, the play enjoyed a multiyear run, a national tour spanning 23 states, and an original cast recording; the Barter has also mounted numerous revivals amid lasting popularity.

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

[19][20] Director Bernard MacMahon commented that "we first came to the Carters through their records, but one of the other things that struck us about them is that they were involved in both of the main waves of America hearing itself for the first time.

They made their first impact in that early wave of rural recordings, and then the next stage was the arrival of radio, and in the late 1930s, they went to Texas and were on XERA, a border station based in Mexico that could be heard all over the central and western United States.

"[21] The Carter Family's story was profiled in the accompanying book, American Epic: The First Time America Heard Itself.