In Search of A. P., Sara and Maybelle (Part 1)

I like to fancy myself somewhat of a connoisseur of music history when it comes to modern rock and roll. I am by no means the encyclopedia of the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame, nor do I claim to be, but being a radio DJ in the late 70's and early 80's, I developed a hankering to learn music history to go along with my already love of history in general. So as my better half will attest, the History Channel, and the many flavors of Discovery Channels as well as many PBS programs fill our home to help fill the bottomless pit I seem to have about various and mostly unrelated historical subjects ranging from World War II history to The Civil War (not Revolutionary War, no interest in it, so far) to the Roman times, all 500 years of it and the Wright Brothers, to name a few.

As far as music history goes, I have had an on again, off again affair with Rock and Roll history of the 50's, 60's (specializing in Beatles history) tapering off in the 70's and because of working in Country Radio in the mid to late 80's some country history, including one piece of personal history in the late 70's while I was just a part time radio DJ with an unknown group called "Alabama" and an equally unknown part-time high school DJ who you now see on CNN Sports, Mark McKay. (and no, McKay ISN'T his real last name, but Mark is his real first name.) But that is fodder for another blog post.

So a few weeks ago, after sweeps when nothing, and I mean NOTHING was on TV, I spied American Experience on PBS. It was about "hillbilly music" and the wife, being raised in the middle mountains of North Carolina, she was groomed on "mountain music," "blue grass" and "country music," I thought, well I can put up with this. It is only an hour show. I tuned over to the HD PBS channel for the widescreen version and American Experience began. It was an episode entitled "The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken." I thought "Carter Family. HHMM. They are somehow related to June Carter Cash, wife of Johnny Cash. This might not be so bad." I am not a huge fan of Johnny Cash, but because I had seen the movie "Walk the Line" a few months back and I had come to appreciate him as an artist and performer, so all I really knew about the "Carter Family" was what I had seen in the movie (not much). And only other thing I know about them was they played "hillbilly music," Sadly, I really had no clue who these people were. At this point, I had no idea that A. P. and Sara even existed. The Carter Family to me was "Mother" Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, that June belong to. In reality, the "Carter Family" was actually a trio that performed and recorded from 1927 to 1943 and consisted of A. P. Carter on backing vocals and arrangement, his wife Sara lead signer and Autoharp and A. P.'s brother's wife Maybelle on guitar and vocals. They recorded the traditional music of the Appalachian Mountains that developed into Country Music and Blue Grass Music that then developed into the Rock and Rock of the 1950's. The Carters were the first to record it to vinyl and copywrited much of the traditional music that we know today. The arrangements of A. P. Carter are still heard in the music even when performed by today's artists such as Bob Dylan. But I am jumping ahead of myself.

The Carter Family (l-r Maybelle, A. P., Sara)

Within the first 5 minutes of the program, I was hooked. They had original recordings (did those still exist from the 1920's? They sounded pretty damn good considering they were more than likely acetates), how I don't know and even though it was indeed "hillbilly music," I heard country sounds like I had heard in the mid to late 80's in country radio and more of a shocker, rock and roll of the 50's and 60's with strains in some current rock and roll music. I was dumbfounded. How could this be and more importantly, how had I missed all this?

All of a sudden, it hit me why in the early 20th Century, it wasn't just called "Country Music" like it is now, but "Country AND Western Music." They were talking two different genre's of music that had a common element, the plight of the common man. Western music being the "original" common man's music out on the plains of the west like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, etc. Country music being hillbilly music or more correctly traditional folk music that came over to this country by word of mouth and was basically hidden in the hills of Appalachia for a couple of hundred years. Songs that I had learned as a child and incorrectly considered "children's music" was being performed by the Carters and others of the period.

After the show, I started to do some research on the Carter Family. American Experience had done a wonderful job of telling their story, but I had this drive to learn more. They had been indirectly involved in one of my favorite pieces of broadcasting history, the Mexican Borderblaster Wars (Part 1 of the 1930's and 1940's and Part 2 in the 1960's with Wolfman Jack) on Mexican stations XERA and XET. XERA was a 500,000 watt AM blowtorch located in Villa Acuna (now Cuidad Acuna) Coahuila, Mexico just across the border from Del Rio, Texas with a daytime signal heard in all 48 continental states and southern Canada. XERA had started life as XER in 1932 as a 50kW directional to the north station and was closed down by the Mexican government in 1933 after Dr John R. Brinkley, formally of Medford, Kansas, had started the station to sell his impotence cure of "goat glad" grafting. He had done this when the US government did the same thing with his station in Medford, KFKB in 1931. The doctor packed up and moved to Del Rio, Texas where he started another broadcast company, and obtain a Mexican license and built XER just across the border and began again until the Mexicans closed him down in about 18 months.

Sara (l) and Maybelle (r) in front of XERA, Villa Acuna, Mexico

In 1935, XER was reborn as XERA by Dr Brinkley where Doc set up a Mexican holding company that owned the license, but it was run from Del Rio, Texas by the quack doctor. This time, a 500,000 watt transmitter was installed to get the message of "goat glands" to the masses. After the US and Mexico signed radio treaties to stop foreign nationals from owning and controlling stations, the Mexican Federales pulled the plug on Doc Brinkley and XERA was silenced again. But not for long. In 1947 the old XERA facilities including transmitter and antenna were powered up again as XERF with Mexican nationals owning the license this time and Del Rio, Texas lawyer Arturo Gonzalez selling the air time, getting around the radio treaties and through this arrangement this is how Wolfman Jack became a household word with the rock and rollers of the early 1960's. This is also the radio station ZZ Top refers to in their song, "Heard It On the X." (Borderblaster, Part 2) The Carter Family was heard on XERA from 1937 to 1939 when the Federales shut it down. XERF still exists with a Construction Permit for 250,000 watts but only runs at 50,000 watts these days with only Mexican programming. The days of the Borderblasters long gone.


Antenna system of XER/XERA Villa Acuna, Mexico in the 1930's

After Doc Brinkley and XERA were shut down, the Carters moved on to XET Radio, another border blaster, until 1941. XET is located in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico and also ran 500,000 watts of power aimed at the US not far from Laredo and Brownsville, Texas. XET's history isn't as storied as XERA but unlike XERA where the Carters performed live twice a day from the Mexican studios, on XET, acetates of their performances were created and then shipped to the station for playback. Many of those recordings still exist and some are available on CD in a 3 disk set called "The Carter Family on Border Radio." Many more acetates are lost forever being used by the locals as roofing material. Today XET programs Spanish langauge to Mexican citizens with only a modest 50,000 watts these days.

The Carter's radio show acetates were also played on borderblaster stations XELO, XEG, XERB, and XEPN. In 1941, the Carter's moved to WBT Radio in Charlotte for the summer season.

continued in Part 2