0:04 Now I can't wait on babies, the smiling merchant said As he stooped and softly toyed with his golden curly head I want to call up mama, came the answer full and free Would you telephone and ask her when she's coming back to me 0:37 My child, the merchant murmured As he stroked the anxious brow No telephone connection Where your mother lives at now No telephone in heaven And the tears sprang in her eyes I thought God had everything With him up in the sky 1:12 Tell her that I get so lonesome that I don't know what to do And papa cries so much I guess he must be lonesome, too Tell her to come to baby, 'cause at night I get so 'fraid With no one there to kiss me when the lights begin to fade 1:48 My child, the merchant murmured As he stroked the anxious brow No telephone connection Where your mother lives at now No telephone in heaven And the tears sprang in her eyes I thought God had everything With him up in the sky

A. P. Carter was our neighbor and friend back when we lived at Maces Springs, Virginia. He visited us a lot. This was back in the late 1940's and a few more years of the 1950's. I was a young teenager back then.

A shame we don't got more of A.P. solo. This is probably my favorite more so than any Carter family song. So simple and real.

A P Carter was born with a condition that caused him to physically shake. Interesting that his voice shook too.

Male Carter voice, thrilling.

first time I heard AP sing alone.Colol stuff.

Good to hear AP singing solo!

So good to hear A.P. singing.

My... Beautiful, spiritual song; and sung so well. God bless A.P. Carter; though I cannot call him now and ask how he sung so well, someday...

wow, never thought I'd be listening to music this old

God bless A.P.

My grandfather is 98 this year (2019) he was Sarah, Maybelle & A.P. Carter sing from the back of a pick up truck in 1928 at our counties fair here in western NC not far at all from where they were from in western Virginia. He remembers it well.

#yes no telephone in heaven...praise the Lord

Sus voces son una bellezas de sonido muy

You hear life in his voice

legend

I love hearing them say "plaint" a flower. I'm one of the last people I know of who still says it that way.

Un monument de la country music!

"XET-AM is an AM broadcasting station licensed for 50,000 watts on 990 kHz at San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León, Mexico. XET went on the air in 1930 as a border blaster targeting the United States in English." ~~ Wikipedia "The Carter Family on Border Radio from Radio Station XET Monterrey, N.L., Mexico, 1939," 3 vols, recorded in 1939 for broadcast, is available on Arhoolie Records.

this guy is spectacular

I really love simple pure yet deep instrumentals and lyric. I so wish that there had been a way to sufficiently let the members of the early Carter family to know of what worth their music has been to traditional & so-called "primitive" American folk & origins of country music almost 100 yrs later.. show them something like the music or the film O Brother & the inspiration the Carter family are, to artists such as Allison Krauss, Union Station and the phenomenal Gillian Welch/ D Rawlings

Just made me cry.

Nice version. It allows me to practice my Carter Family female harmonizing!

Wow never thought i would hear a.p. do a solo

People overstate of the rarity of AP singing solo. Early on, it was not unusual for him to sing verses solo, and then Sara or she and Maybelle would join in the chorus. "My Clinch Mountain Home", one of their iconic songs, is an example. In "Lonsome for You", Sara and AP trade of solo lines. "The Cannonball", "It'll Aggravate Your Soul" and "Something Got a Hold of Me" are other examples of AP singing completely solo. In fact, he sang solo more often than Maybelle.

Maybelle sings lead on Bury Me Beneath the Willow on the Bristol Session recordings.

I love the Carter family 🥰

I remember when we went to the general store to use the phone.

magnifico...

amen

People saying he’s not playing, I’m certain it is him. It sounds like he was playing in open g. That would make sense if he was a novice or had shaky hands, he could easily play chords with one or a few fingers.

The better to hear you with!

Maybelle did sing lead on a pressing from the very first Bristol recordings.

@elias01 It is a fact The Carter Family played at Del Rio/ Cuidad Acuna first then at Xera then at Monterrey. I had been to Acuna /.Del Rio and had seen the artifacts of their broadcasting. They recorded live when they first went to Texas, later they would record and the masters were taken to the radio station in Monterrey. AP Carter was so depressed that Sara and Coy Bayes were flaunting their romance in his face he went home to be in Virginia - his absence is noticable on the recordings

AP and Sara are not buried together. They are in the same graveyard (Mt. Vernon) several rows apart. The site next to AP was reserved for his daughter Jeanette and is sadly now occupied. The headstones of rose colored granite used for AP and Sara is the same and there is a record with the title Keep on the Sunny Side on them. The family brought her back to Poor Valley but I believe it was her wish to be buried with Coy Bayes (Bays) her husband.

His first was The Cannonball if my memory serves me correctly.

Great song and version by A.P. Wish he'd sung more himself, though I expect he did when they were doing those radio shows in the late 30s / early 40s.

There was a radio Station XET in Monterrey and the Carters were "on the border there" They were at XERA in Ciudad Acuna /Del Rio. I have been there everyone is correct The song is another of my favorites It is almost impossible to play along with AP The timing is similar to an inch worm but it is as steady as a metronome. To think he was fearful of singing solo for such a long time. He filled out the singing of the girls. There was always something lacking when he didn't join in.

I like jisy style its older than thehills

Anyone else noticed that June had his eyes?

I can't think of one in the early career. Maybelle was not who AP was in love with so of course she didn't get the solos.

Poor AP couldn't repair or keep up his own property as he wasn't inclinced to physically work. He wasn't interested in preserving a nest, but he sure could sing. Too bad Sara found her jollies in Hollywood, but I guess it was a given. My grandmother wondered if she'd get their songbook after she heard about the divorce, but she did.

Ralph Peer was the "somebody else" Maybelle referred to as " who made all the money". He didn't like folk music at all. Called it "pluperfect awful". He sure got rich from it though. Eighty years later and the music business hasn't changed that much. Artists are still getting ripped off.

The better to hear you with

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I don't think that A.P is playing guitar here. According to Maybelle, A.P had a problem with his hands so he wasn't able to play an instrument, so he only sang. It might have been either Maybelle or Sara playing with him in this recording.

lol thats a big pair of ears

Maybelle is singing lead. I don't want to be rude but you don't seem to understand what singing a lead vocal is. Believe what you wish. I have talked to Sara's daughter and granddaughter so I am not relying on the Zwonitzer book - I am relying on something known as your word being your bond.

Sorry. I was under the impression that were reasonably intelligent. My mistake.

The girls could sing but he couldn't sing for shit.

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