AMG Review of Chet Atkins with the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle 1949

Steve Leggett
All Music Guide

After the original Carter Family trio stopped performing together, Maybelle Carter formed Mother Maybelle & the Carter Sisters in 1943 with her daughters Helen, Anita, and June Carter, and in 1947 Maybelle added a young Chet Atkins to the group to play electric lead guitar. This reconstituted Carter Family recorded some 60 songs in 1949 and 1950 to be used as live radio transcriptions, the earliest of which are included here (County Routes released the later sessions on CD in 2005 as The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle with Chet Atkins). The sound on these transcriptions is clear and sharp, and for those who only know the much more Appalachian-sounding A.P. Carter version of the Carter Family, it is a bit of a revelation, with a more modern Nashville veneer. A half-dozen or so of these tracks are Atkins guitar solos, and he sings an occasional lead vocal and a harmony or two, but it is the Carter sisters' joyous harmonies that really carry the show. Highlights include ensemble pieces like "You Belong to Me," "Someone's Last Day," "Under the Hickory Nut Tree" (featuring Atkins on the lead vocal), several short versions of "In the Pines," and a wonderful duet from Helen and Anita Carter on "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain."