June Carter Cash (SD)

June Carter Cash was born into the world of country music, a child of the legendary Carter Family, who brought country music to a national audience in the 1930s. Her mother Maybelle Carter was the most celebrated practitioner of the so-called "Carter Scratch" or "Carter picking" guitar style, still imitated around the world. June Carter began performing with the family when she was ten years old. In her teens, she recorded broadcast and toured with her mother and two sisters. She played guitar, banjo, harmonica and autoharp. At age 16 she became one of the principal announcers of their radio broadcasts, and her gift for comedy became one of the act's great assets. In the 1950s the Mother Maybelle and the carter Sisters were regulars no the Grand Ole Opry, where June met other young up-and-comers, including Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Famed stage and film director Elia Kazan saw June Carter perform at the Opry and encouraged her to study acting in New York, where she met a fellow acting student, James Dean. Carter would act in a number of films and television series over the years, but music remained her first love. In the 1960s she began to tour with her friend Johnny Cash. They won a Grammy Award in 1967 for their duet "Jackson." In 1968, Cash proposed to her onstage in London, Ontario and they married later that year. They scored a second duet Grammy for "If I Was A Carpenter" in 1970. They also starred in a regular weekly television variety show in the late '60s. Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash toured and recorded together for the rest of their lives, lending their support to worthy causes such as the SOS Children's Villages in Barrett Town, Jamaica. In 1999, June Carter Cash won a solo Grammy on for her album Press On. A posthumous recording, Wildwood Flower, was honored with two Grammy Awards. June Carter Cash died in 2003 and was followed in death by her husband Johnny Cash less than four months later. Their son, John Carter Cash, is songwriter and producer. June's daughter by a previous marriage, Carlene Carter, has also enjoyed a successful recording career as a country singer. This solo performance by June Carter Cash was recorded at the 1995 International Achievement Summit in Williamsburg, Virginia.