The Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln at the crossroads

For more than one hundred and forty years, historians and citizens alike have discussed the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation. In the South, many still view it as Lincoln's go-for-broke moment, when the War was not going well, and his role as President was most uncertain. Today's overheated media-driven pundits would have had a field day with the too-tall rail-splitter from Illinois and his obviously political maneuvering.

Still, Lincoln upped the ante in the midst of a conflict that split the nation in two: did the Founding Fathers really mean that all men were created equal -- not just on fine parchment, but in the raw plantation fields of South Carolina? It was his boldest move, and one that baited sectarian passion. Today Lincoln's critics would assuredly cast blame on the beleagured war-time president for playing the race card. The Proclamation makes it clear the Founding Fathers would agree with a higher aim; the document calls emancipation sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution.

It's difficult to imagine the civil rights era of the twentieth century (or the current tussle over health care) already being recast, as it is likely to see it presented in another forty years: as opportunism, pandering politics, badly-compromised idealism. Political hindsight often has a way of emphasizing the negative and downplaying the intention. Abe's birthday is a good time to revisit the actual document whose intent and purpose, enacted in a time of unbearable civil conflict, is still an unparalleled moment in American leadership.


The Emancipation Proclamation
January 1, 1863
A Transcription

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Poetry magazine, "bringing them woo hips" to the Shakesperean rag

Patricia Smith

Poetry Magazine is such a puzzle. The magazine (and now the Poetry Foundation) serves as a well-funded venue for contemporary poets, an honored and recognized voice for poets since Harriet Monroe began publishing in 1912. Yet I'm mystified these days by most of what the current editor, Christian Wiman, selects: many of the poems seem academic, and word usage almost seems archaic. I won't name names here -- but the room needs some air. This isn't a case of sour grapes: I've subscribed infrequently but never submitted a thing to Poetry, although I've thought about it from time to time.

I'm just not on the magazine's track, apparently, but that's the immediate thing about poetry itself: it either moves you or it doesn't. And, as the young Elvis once slurred into the microphone after one false start at a rocking little tune, "that don't move me, fellas. Let's get real gone for a change."

What's missing in Poetry Magazine for me is the spoken energy of poems. They are meant to be read, and not spoken, most of them. Jonathan Williams, the erstwhile wordsmith of Scaly Mountain, NC, had it right when he commented that to be appreciated poetry should be read out loud, and (more importantly) written to be read that way as well. Chaucer's Tales read by a roaring fire with wine-cups at the ready, the Six Gallery reading in 1955 with Kerouac urging readers to "go! go! GO!": the spoken poem has to have an engine that drives it, and that's what often lacks in the pages of Poetry.

Not that the magazine doesn't have its interests for me. The current issue has a nice interview article by Jeremy Richards titled "A Shifting Sense of Place." Patricia Smith, Todd Boss, C.D. Wright, and Frances McCue are asked what place their poetry has in the world, where it belongs. Todd Boss comes right out of the gate with perhaps the most itchy, American reply: here’s the sad truth: I’ve resented every place I’ve ever been. It isn’t “me,” or I don’t “fit in,” or it’s “too close to home,” or my wife isn’t happy there, or it’s not where I’d have chosen to live, or whatever.

Boss's first book was called Yellowrocket, and his cinematic video (for motionpoems.com) is posted on YouTube. It's no surprise that his poem "The Sticks" is filled with stuttering, stumbling, don't-wanna-hang-out-here-long energy:

my mother still mutters whenever

she remembers where we lived,

reciting then her one life sentence

of overlush underbrush, neighbor trash,

shoddy farms and fallen fences

and filthy Herefords knee-deep in

barnyard shit. ...

Now, that moves me like a twitchy needle in the groove of a 45 rpm record. Why doesn't Poetry publish more poems like that? Patricia Smith -- her 2008 book is Blood Dazzler -- doesn't write nature poetry ("concrete and glass were the order of the day ... why should I strain towards something that's so alien to me?") and sounds more at home around the jukebox rhymes of rhythm and blues: here's part of her poem, "Hip Hop Ghazzal":

Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat,

swinging blue hips,

decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie,

bringing them woo hips.

As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas

throat the heartbreak,

inhaling bassline, cracking backbone

and singing thru hips.

Like something boneless, we glide silent,

seeping ’tween floorboards,

wrapping around the hims, and ooh wee,

clinging like glue hips. ...

That is poetry that jumps and wiggles itself off the page, and it's full of an energy that reads just as well as it can be spoken. "As a poet, you search for whatever gives a place its muscle and bone," Smith writes, and she could just as well be talking about its animation. It's an energy Poetry Magazine could use more of, more of Eliot's elegant, intelligent Shakespherian rag: 'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?' The editors of Poetry ought not to be alarmed. There's still plenty of space in the room for the women who come and go speaking of Michelangelo.

"The Bluebird," Charles Bukowski

The Bluebird

Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

"The Bluebird" was originally included in Bukowski's collection The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992). Thanks to Aralee for passing this on.

"Planet Drum" (1991), Mickey Hart and Fredric Lieberman's big beat

Mickey Hart, drummer for the Grateful Dead since 1967 in its many incarnations, should know a thing or two about percussion.

Now 67, he's participated in various projects at the Smithsonian Institution and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, among others, including studies in the role of music in healing and health. Hart's 1991 book, Planet Drum: A Celebration of Percussion and Rhythm, which he co-authored with Fredric Lieberman, is a wide-ranging survey of the big beat heard around the world and its place in history and culture.

Percussion is an old, old sound that goes way, way back: the big bang at the beginning of the universe is "beat one;" the rest, according to Joseph Campbell quoted here, is "a fragmentation in the field of time."

Long before rock'n'roll records were smashed and trashed because of their prinmitive beats, Buddhist monks coming into Tibet performed their religious practice without drums -- to distinguish themselves from the magicians and shamans of Bon, an older Tibetan religion and its drumming rituals given by the gods.

"Tsong Khapa asked Chumbu, 'Why do you use the drum? You know we don't use drums because that's the way of shamans.' Chumbu replied, 'I do it for Mahakala. He likes it.' Tsong Khapa was not convinced. He said, 'Try not using it for a while, and see if there's any difference. Personally, I think it's a superstition, and you don't really need it.' So Chumbu stopped using the damaru. But he felt unhappy and never saw a trace of Mahakala. Everybody was miserable. When Tsong Khapa returned he asked, 'Was there a difference?' Chumbu replied, 'There was a great difference! Mahakala didn't like it, and I don't like it. So, please, let's go back to using the drum again.' Tsong Khapa then reinstated the use of drums again in ritual."

Congas played by Francesco Aguabella, 1988

It's myth-making on a grand scale, and stories like this run throughout Planet Drum's pages: the Buddhists learned to incorporate the power of rhythm (and symbolism) in the instrument called the damaru. The book quotes Buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku:

"Buddhists don't get hung up on ancestral things. But an important reason we use bones -- human and animal -- in instruments such as the damaru, the thigh-bone trumpets, and in implements such as skull bowls, is to serve as continual reminders of impermanence and the immediacy of death. You know that death is close by, and death is an advisor. And you realize that your own bones will eventually be like this."

The full-page photo of "Priscilla," a 37-kiloton atomic bomb tested in 1957, brings home this point in an unexpected way.

While including an atomic bomb may be a stretch, it emphasizes Hart's busman's holiday of drumming that takes on all forms in Planet Drum, from the Russian bell called Tsar-Kolokol ("emperor of bells") to the rattle of sistras in Eithopia. It's a big, sometimes dizzying tour, both in time and place.

Ethiopian musicians playing the sistra, mid-1980s.

The book is a museum of photographs -- a bit jumbled at times, with timelines and text splashed across the pages -- but the scope of the book underscores the universal uses of sound and rhythm throughout human history: from the beginning, a mother's heartbeat is the first rhythm we know. In life, in religion, and in war, the beat strengthens ritual, enhances enjoyment, inspires devotion or fear.

"Just what do we find so attractive about rhythmically-controlled noise? Part of the answer is found in the nature of percussive noise. Loud! Sudden! It trips the switches in the oldest part of the brain, the part that quickly reacts with a fight-or-flight program, stimulating the release of adrenaline ... we never feel so alive as when the adrenaline is flowing."

A Vatican fresco, 1500s

Hart calls drumming "our musical skeleton key" -- an appropriate metaphor for someone still Grateful after all these years, in whatever shapes the Dead are still performing. It may yet be February, but another spring season approaches with warm weather and green days ahead; time to celebrate renewal, rattle those pots and pans, time again to shake that old bag of bones. Twirling is optional.

(Images from Planet Drum, 1991)

"The Forgotten Peninsula" (1961): beating the mid-winter blues

Why does the year's shortest month always seem so long? That's a philosopher's question that refuses to be answered simply. Here in Georgia, the weather's a crap shoot. It's either too cold or, teasingly, surprisingly warm -- there's new color in the ground already, with more than a month to go before Spring officially begins. And the jonquils that will be appearing soon? They're sure to be smothered by March's cold snap and blackberry winter.

The only solace in February, really, is its brevity; imagine how long winter would seem if the month had a full supply of thirty-one days.

Now's a good time to think warm thoughts, or at least read about those magical places nearer the tropics where the weather is considered more a state of mind than something to survive. In 1959 the author and naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch made a return visit to Baja California, the peninsula to the west of Mexico bordering the Sea of Cortez. The result was his 1961 book, The Forgotten Peninsula. Krutch, who lived in the Sonoran desert near Tucson, called himself "a collector of deserts"; he was in awe of the variety of plants and animals he found in the arid regions of the North American continent. Even as an experienced adventurer, he found the Baja's desolation and remoteness a challenge, best dealt with some humor:

"Even properly equipped, the traveler inclined to say 'I'll be in San Ignacio or Mulege or what-not next Tuesday' had better remember the oriental story of the pilgrim who, when asked where he was going, replied, 'To Damascus,' and refused to add 'God willing.' As a punishment for his impiety he was turned into a frog and spent nine years in a puddle by the roadside. When at last he found himself restored to human form and met again the mysterious questioner he replied to the reiterated inquiry: 'I am going to Damascus or back to the frogpond.' There are not many frogponds in Baja but one could easily find oneself stuck in the same arroyo."

I discovered his writing through a battered copy of The Desert Year, which I read during one of my first February trips to Tucson in the early 1990s. Although the march of time (and progress) was rapidly changing the landscape of the Sonoran desert then, I was still able to see much of the beauty and uniqueness of the land that had so captured Krutch's imagination. Of course, my initial trips into the desert involved much use of a Dodge van and a rented, shiny-red two-door Neon, with frequent stops at the ubiquitous Circle K markets that spring up like cactus roses in the wet season.
I did manage, eventually, to get to Organ Pipe National Forest and Joshua Tree, places where the Milky Way galaxy is a real, astronomical phenomenon and where it did get truly, beautifully, dark. It's a rare treat in these United States of Kilowatt Hours.

Krutch and friend, photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life magazine

This vast emptiness was disappearing quickly back in 1959, after centuries of desert solitude. Krutch's final chapter describes, with some regret, the hotels and airport strip being constructed at the tip of the Baja ("eight thousand feet; obviously intended, ultimately, at least for jets," a companion informs him). Soon to become a wintertime haven for the footloose and fancy-free 1960s jet set, Cabo San Lucas is now the site of rock festival and spring break, where rocker Sammy Hagar meets you at the dock and personally escorts the visitor to his own Cabo Wabo Cantina. So it goes.

Krutch himself was aware of this dilemma between the demands of nature and the wants of civilization. It's a question that dogs man endlessly; one observer of Krutch's writings has called it, simply, "the right question." Krutch wrote: "Has anyone even raised the question of how populous, how mechanized, how complicated, and how abundant a society should be if what we want is not numbers, mechanization, complexity, and abundance for their own sake, but the best life possible for a creature who has the needs, the preferences, and the potential of the human being?"

In 1959, still, there was desolation and mostly-uninhabited Baja, with native flora and fauna.The Forgotten Peninsula traces the region's natural, political, and religious history with an expert eye toward irony and, eventually, resignation to encroaching progress and its economic benefits. As always, the secrets of a wilderness discovered are likely to disappear once the secret's out, but Krutch seems to be describing Baja just before the marketplace and time's march changed it forever.

Baja California, First view of the Sea of Cortez (Alex Brumbaugh Photography)

I opened the book to a chapter entitled "Seeing it the hard way" and was charmed by the easy way Krutch -- who was 66 in 1959 -- battled obstacles natural, mechanical and cultural in his Baja pursuit. Here is his description of his entry into the Baja country fifty years ago this week. February, it seems, has always been a good time to travel south.

"It was February 27, 1959, a little less than two years after my first introduction to Baja. Our company assembled at San Diego; we ran the 120 miles to Mexicali in a little over two hours and we were in Mexico by mid-afternoon. The first twenty miles of paved road crosses farming country, irrigated from the Colorado River, and not very different from the lower Imperial Valley of which it is an extension. It is part of the ancient delta, relatively prosperous and "developed." Then the population thins rapidly, poverty begins to take over, and soon the road, though still well- graded and paved, is running through some of the dryest, most barren and rugged country anywhere in Baja. ...

There was acre after acre of purple sand verbena, and of a white evening primrose perhaps four inches in diameter, growing close to the ground. The Mojave in California is perhaps as nearly incredible in one of its best years, but I have never happened to be there at such a time and this was the most magnificent display of desert flowers I had ever seen. Now and again it would thin out, then recover its profusion, though perhaps it was never again quite so astonishing as over the first fifteen miles south of San Felipe.

Purple sand verbena, from the Backroads website

We had already said good-by to paved road, not to come upon it again for six days and 650 miles. Though the sandy road out of San Felipe continues fairly good for fifty miles we saw no car upon it and no human being until we came to the tiny sport-fishing camp at Puertocitos. Just south of Puertocitos the moderately good road gives out and during the next few hours we averaged only about twelve miles per hour despite a truck made for rough travel and capable of absorbing a good deal of punishment.

'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' So runs Tolstoy's famous pronouncement and one might borrow the formula to state an equally profound truth: All good roads are alike; every bad road is bad in its own way. We were to meet all of the latter in the course of the trip and several of them during this second day, including the terrifying sort which consists ofall but impossible grades strewn with boulder-sized rocks and clinging to the sheer wall of a canyon whose bottom lies hundreds of feet below. They are also, just to cap the climax, barely one car wide."

Reading description of desert, mountain, or jungle as well-written as this is a great tonic for the mid-winter blues. Whenever I get the urge to visit the Sonoran desert (or until I decide I've had enough of raking leaves, and just move to the desert and rake the sand in my front yard) the writing of Joseph Wood Krutch will do just fine. I'll probably miss the February jonquils, though I'll enjoy the winter's cactus roses.

"Fighting the Devil in Dixie": a Decatur appearance by author Wayne Greenhaw

Tomorrow, February 8 at the Decatur Library auditorium at 7:15 p.m., Prize-winning veteran Alabama journalist Wayne Greenhaw joins in a discussion of his new book, Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. The book examines how the Klan, empowered by Governor George Wallace’s defiance of civil rights laws, grew more violent until confronted by a courageous and determined coalition of blacks and whites.

Greenhaw, now 70, was a teenager growing up in Tuscaloosa and his book is researched with the detail of an eyewitness account: he writes that as a young student he watched "Klansmen in their robes parading through the streets" and had the notorious Klan leader Bobby Shelton pointed out to him by a relative.

Later, as a reporter, Greenhaw saw many sides of the story, but as a resident he saw much of the history firsthand. In a note on his webpage the author writes

On one of my numerous breaks from school as a student at the University of Alabama I tended bar at the RFD Lounge in the Molton Hotel on 20th Avenue North. There, I served drinks to Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, (as well as) an undercover FBI informant whom I later discovered was posing as a Klansman, several KKK members I recognized, and a number of local politicians who hobnobbed with the Klan.

Greenhaw tells the complex and evolving story, from the Klan’s bombings and murders in the 1950s to Wallace’s run for a fourth term as governor in the early 1980s. By then, Wallace's tactics had altered: the governor who once proclaimed "segregation forever" asked for forgiveness and won re-election with the black vote.

As the struggle for civil rights developed in Alabama, Greenhaw -- who was a reporter from 1965 to 1976 for the Alabama Journal and Advertiser -- relates the daily victories and frustrations of a slowly turning tide that was in no way certain of success. Greenhaw has written extensively about Alabama history; in 2006 he received the Harper Lee Award as a distinguished Alabama writer.

"The Winding Stream," a new documentary on The Carter Family

The Carter Family: Maybelle, A.P., and Sara

Oh give to me a winding stream

It must not be too wide

Where waving leaves from maple trees

Do meet from either side

The water must be deep enough

to float a small canoe

With no one else but you

Do not disturb my waking dream

the splendor of that winding stream

Flower in my canoe, his eyes

they looked me through

That someone there with golden hair

is very much like you

The "winding stream" of country music has at it source the Carter family of Maces Springs, Virginia: A.P. Carter, his wife Sara, and his sister Maybelle. They recorded their first 78 rpm record at an audition in Bristol, Tennessee, in 1927, then traveled to Camden, NJ in 1928 for the Victor Talking Machine company. Their songs were released just at the time when radio was becoming the popular entertainment medium, and The Carter Family became the first stars of what became known as country music: by 1931 they had sold an astonishing 300,000 records in the U.S.

The popularity of the Carter family name is stronger than ever, thanks to the efforts of many musicians who have revived the tradition and kept it alive. The music of succeeding family members themselves has shown an amazing versatility: Johnny and June Carter Cash, Carlene Carter, Rosanne Cash all carried on in the family tradition, each with a unique approach to country music.

Beth Harrington's documentary, The Winding Stream, recounts the Carter Family story in interviews and film clips, photographs and fond memories: Johnny and June Carter Cash, George Jones, Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Kris Kristofferson and others re-live the Carter story and perform songs that have become part of the music's legend: "Wildwood Flower," "Can the Circle Be Unbroken," "Keep on the Sunny Side" -- all songs that A.P., Sara and Maybelle recorded for Victor in their first Camden studio session in 1928.

What made these songs unique, as Harrington writes, wasn't that the Carters simply recreated existing tunes. A.P. Carter was a song composer as well as a collector, and his ability to craft new tunes from old country melodies caught the public imagination. Along with Maybelle's featured guitar-playing (its simplicity and sound were rarely heard on records at the time) and Sara's "eerie Gothic" vocals, the music was a new sound available to everyone with a Victrola 78-rpm phonograph machine in their home.

Very quickly, the Carters became a sensation. The family's songs of longing and loss, love and hope were a new twist on old themes that would inspire others like Jimmie Rodgers and then Hank Williams, whose own songs made country music a staple on radio stations across the country.

The Winding Stream documentary -- its name is taken from a song written by A.P. in 1930 -- traces this history not just for country music fans but for a wider audience, who may not recognize the Carters' impact on folk and rock music as well. Carter Family songs have been covered in an array of styles from Dylan to Jeff Buckley, The Black Crowes to John Lee Hooker (both the Crowes and Hooker have performed "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" -- a fact that A.P. himself would likely find amusing, if a bit too loud for his ears).

Beth Harrington

Beth Harrington's previous documentaries cover an array of topics, several created for Oregon Public Broadcasting: Beervana is a light-hearted look at Oregon's craft-brewed beer industry. Blinking Madonna is a study of a Boston-area group of Catholics who see a statue of the Virgin Mary blink its eyes, and the ensuing press coverage that follows. The Grammy-nominated Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly (2003) features Wanda Jackson, whose new 2011 album was produced by Jack White of the White Stripes.

The Winding Stream 90-minute documentary is still in need of money to complete the project. In January a successful Kickstarter benefit went a good way to raise funding. The Winding Stream website includes current updates on the documentary as well a link where contributions can be made through Paypal or by mail to the fiscal sponsor, Center for Independent Documentary, 680 South Main Street. Sharon, MA 02067.

A few sources on Carter Family members and extended family are available for readers interested in learning more. Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone by Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirshberg tells a thorough history of the Original Carter Family in anecdotes and research, with no hiding the fact that the family had many problems that underlay the popularity of the music, from divorce and love affairs to Johnny Cash's battle with alcohol and drugs. Yet it's a testament to the longevity of the music that these stories (some told for the first time) make the Carter family history one that resonates with many of its fans.

Most recently, Rosanne Cash's 2010 memoir Composed is her own story of becoming a songwriter. Self-described as a "pudgy, withdrawn girl .. a counterfeit with a strange, hidden life," the young Rosanne is afraid of being compared to her famous father, Johnny Cash. She travels to Munich to record her own demo songs, and her coming-of-age story is a new telling of the Cash family story (she is the daughter of Cash's first wife, Vivian) from a perspective that is poignant, loving, and sometimes heart-breaking.