Keep on the Sunny Side play at Carter Fold

The most famous and historically significant family in country music history, the Carter Family, has its wonderful story told in a marvelous musical way in this production written by Southwest Virginia’s own Dr. Douglas Pote. A.P. Carter, the family patriarch, had a vision of bringing his music to people all over the world, no matter what personal sacrifices he had to make. He dubbed his songs a form of “poetry,” and indeed the haunting lyrics seem to have stories all their own to tell. He was a man ahead of his time whose musical legacy will live on as long as people listen to and appreciate good music. Songs like Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Wildwood Flower, My Clinch Mountain Home, and Keep On the Sunny Side are more than enduring classics; they are part of American musical history, inspiring a generation of singers and songwriters, including Elvis Presley.

When A.P., Sara, and Maybelle Carter borrowed a car to come down from Maces Springs to record songs in Bristol, they had no inkling what impact those sessions would have on music, and not just country music. A.P. thought it was a good way to make a few dollars from some of the songs he’d found or written. That journey to a small town became known as the Bristol Sessions; a landmark in country music history. It brought country and folk music out of the mountains for the first time, and into mainstream America. A.P. is believed to have written over 300 songs, and now his story as a live production comes home to the Carter Fold. A.P.’s daughter and keeper of the family’s musical flame, Janette Carter, enjoyed Barter’s Stage II mini-production of Keep On the Sunny Side on three separate occasions, andlegendary country music performer Tom T. Hall gave it “FourStars!”