Music legends step onto Lipscomb stage in February to honor Mother Maybelle Carter

 

Traditional American music will take center stage at Lipscomb University Feb. 11 when its inaugural Music from the Mountain concert debuts, this year honoring Mother Maybelle Carter of The Carter Family, a group that was prominent in the history of bluegrass and country music.  

 

Tickets are on sale now for Music from the Mountain: An Evening Honoring Mother Maybelle Carter which will be emceed by Larry Gatlin and feature several American musical legends including Del McCoury, Tom T. Hall, The Whites and the Gatlin Brothers.

 

Proceeds from the concert, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Collins Alumni Auditoirum, will benefit the Nashville Rescue Mission.

 

John Carter and his wife Laura Cash have partnered exclusively with Lipscomb University to develop this benefit concert to honor the generous spirit and musical legacy of Mother Maybelle Carter. Dale Jett, also a descendent of the original groundbreaking The Carter Family, completes The Carter Family III which will perform that evening along with other special guests including performer Heather Berry.

 

Tickets are on sale now through Ticketmaster and at the Lipscomb University Box Office in Allen Arena on campus.  Reserved seats are $50, $30 and $20, with a signed commemorative Hatch Show Print provided with the purchase of $50 tickets.

 

 

 

Maybelle, Sara and A.P. Carter were the original members of The Carter Family, known as one of the most influential groups in country music history. The Carter Family sang a pure, simple harmony that influenced not only the numerous other family groups of the '30s and the '40s, but folk, bluegrass, and rock musicians for decades, including Woody Guthrie, Bill Monroe, the Kingston Trio, Doc Watson, Bob Dylan, and Emmylou Harris.

 

 

The Carter Family III -- John Carter Cash, grandson of Maybelle Carter and son of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash; his wife Laura Cash; and Dale Jett, grandson of A.P. and Sara Carter -- are scheduled to release Past & Present, a new recording of Carter Family tunes, in February 2010.

 

Singer-songwriter and record producer John Carter Cash began his producing career with his mother June Carter Cash’s Grammy-winning CD, Press On. He served as associate producer on his father Johnny Cash’s Grammy winning records American III: Solitary Man and American IV: The Man Comes Around. He also produced his mother’s record Wildwood Flower, which won a 2003 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk album. John Carter's first CD, Bitter Harvest, was released in 2003 to the European market.

 

When she was just 17 years old, Laura Cash placed first in the much coveted National Fiddle Championship at Weiser, Idaho (junior division). She has played on tour for Patty Loveless, Pam Tillis, James House and Chalee Tennison, among others. In spring 1999 she played fiddle with June Carter Cash on tour and met her future husband, John Carter Cash. She played on Johnny Cash’s albums, American III and American IV, and June's album Wildwood Flower.

 

 

Jett and his group Hello Stranger have appeared on Mountain Stage, “The Marty Stuart Show,” The Grand Ole Opry, and have performed at festivals, concerts, colleges and workshops across the nation.

 

For 50 years, McCoury’s music has defined authenticity for hard core bluegrass fans. McCoury got his first taste of the limelight when he joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1963. He headed up the band the Dixie Pals for 15 years, playing bluegrass festivals and making recordings. Original songs by McCoury include “High On a Mountain,” “Are You Teasing Me,” “Dark Hollow” and “Bluest Man in Town.”

 

The Del McCoury Band, featuring two of Del’s sons, came to Nashville in the 1990s, winning three consecutive Male Vocalist of the Year awards and nine Entertainer of the Year awards from the prestigious International Bluegrass Music Association. McCoury earned membership in the Grand Ole Opry in 2003, and the band earned their first Best Bluegrass Album Grammy award two years later. They have traveled with the O Brother Where Art Thou? “Down From The Mountain” tour, performed with Vince Gill, and appeared at the Bonnaroo Festival.

Over the course of four decades, the Gatlin Brothers’ career has taken the trio from dusty Texas stages to White House performances, from Broadway to Grammy Awards, and to the top of the country charts. The early 1970s found Larry in Nashville writing songs that would be recorded by names like Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Barbara Streisand, Tom Jones, and Elvis Presley. 

Over the years the Gatlin Brothers scored more than a dozen Top 40 hits, including “Denver,” “She Used To Be Somebody's Baby,” “I've Done Enough Dyin' Today,” “Night Time Magic” and “Talkin' To The Moon.”  In 1979 Larry Gatlin won the Academy of Country Music’s Top Male Vocalist, the album Straight Ahead won Album of the Year, and “All The Gold In California” won Single of the Year.

 

Tom T. Hall, nicknamed “the storyteller” by Tex Ritter, is best known as a songwriter who jump-started his solo career following Jeannie C. Reilly’s No. 1 hit with his “Harper Valley PTA,” a Country Music Association (CMA) Single of the Year in 1968. He was one of the artists on the bill for the first-ever Fan Fair® (now the CMA Music Festival) in 1972. Hall has written country classics including “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine,” “I Love,” and “Country Is.”

 

After 34 years of entertaining, he retired. Now he and his wife Dixie Hall spend much of their time songwriting. The pair were the fan’s pick for the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America Bluegrass Songwriter of the Year Award in 2009.

 

The Whites, now made up of Daddy Buck and daughters Cheryl and Sharon, were well known in bluegrass circles by the mid-’60s. By 1982, the Whites hit mainstream country radio. Their first Top 10 hit, “You Put the Blue in Me,” was followed by “Pins and Needles,” “Wonder Who’s Holding My Baby Tonight,” and “Hanging Around.”

 

The family act joined the Grand Ole Opry cast in 1984. The group enjoyed on-screen roles in the 2000 hit movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and performed on its Grammy-winning soundtrack, contributing “Keep on the Sunny Side.”

 

At the age of 12, Heather Berry was asked to grace the stage with such notable artists as The Lewis Family and the late Charlie Waller and the County Gentlemen. When she was 16, Heather displayed her vocal, instrumental and writing talents on an all-gospel project titled He Walks Beside Me, caught the attention of singer-songwriters Dixie and Tom T. Hall and was signed to the Blue Circle record label.  At the age of 20, Heather has released seven CDs. Heather’s newest CD, Before Bluegrass, with her husband Tony Mabe, is a recording featuring all original songs by Tom T. & Dixie Hall and Heather & Tony Berry.