It’s not everyday that country music royalty comes to town to perform a show, but for Santa Ynez Valley residents, it’s all in the neighborhood.
Carlene Carter has called Santa Ynez her home for a decade now, but all good things must come to an end. The daughter of June Carter Cash by her first husband, Carl Smith, and grandaughter of Maybelle of the original Carter Family, Carter has decided to move back to Nashville to be closer to her own grandkids.
“I’ve loved living here,” she said. “But now it’s hit a spot where it just makes sense to kind of, … I ain’t sayin’ we ain’t gonna come back here when get older, you know.”
Before she leaves, Carter wanted to “give a musical farewell to my friends that I’ve made here.” She reached out to friend and neighbor John Wright, owner of Standing Sun Wines in Buellton, and they booked a day.
Carter has known Wright for about as long as she’s been in the valley, she said.
“It’s been nine or 10 years, so I got to see when he started the music at Standing Sun,” she said. “I played in 2014, … kind of the early days of when he started having music there, and we did it really off the cuff.”
“It’s going to be really cool to play there again,” she added.
The show isn’t limited to just her friends from the valley, of course, but anyone who wants to bid farewell to Carter and hear some of her signature tunes. She will perform with her guitar, though there may be some special drop-in guests, she hinted.
Carter’s style has developed over the years. She grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, learning how to play the “Carter Scratch” guitar style as a youngster from the originator, her grandmother Maybelle. That relationship with her grandmother was part of the inspiration to move back to Nashville, she explained.
“I wanted my grandchildren to grow up knowing their grandma like I knew my grandma,” she said. “She was a very important person in my life and the influence she had on me was very positive and it’s carried me a long way in my life as a woman.”
Though she’s eager to move back East, Carter said she’s “always been a California girl.” She moved to LA in her 20s before she “fell in love and moved to England,” but had always returned over the years.
Her husband since 2006 is Joseph Breen, an actor, so staying close to LA was a given, Carter explained, but living in that valley is a challenge. The Santa Ynez Valley, however, isn’t like that, she said.
“Just driving from Santa Barbara over the San Marcos pass, and you hit that crest and you see the lake and the mountains around everything; it’s just like this breath of fresh air, just on a spiritual level, and the area’s always spoken to me,” she said.
Living on the Central Coast afforded Carter the time and comfort to dive deeper into her music. Her last album, Carter Girl, which came out in 2014, included her playing acoustic guitar on every track, she said.
Making sure she was completely steeped in her family’s style took hours of sequestered study at her home in Santa Ynez.
“I wood-shedded for like a year, where I listened and learned and watched as much live footage as I could of my grandma playing,” she said. “I knew the basics of it and how she did it, … but I was really trying to be as close as I could to the real deal.”
Moving to Nashville will serve her music as well, she said. A Carter Family reunion album is in the works with her half brother, John Carter Cash, son of her mom June and stepfather Johnny Cash. She’s also looking forward to being a regular performer at the Grand Ole Opry again, much like her forbearers.
The show at Standing Sun will include plenty of stories in between well known songs, like her grandmother’s iconic “Wildwood Flower.” Carter has lots of stories to tell—like teaching Keith Richards “Wildwood Flower” at his behest—but she also has plenty from her decade of “adventures” living on the Central Coast.
“I always tell a lot of stories, so it’s just a night of music and stories and laughter,” she said. “And maybe I might make someone cry, you never know.
Carter said that when she first moved to the area that she was still “very much in grief” over the passing of her mother, her stepfather, and her sister Rosie, all of whom died in 2003.
Her time in Santa Ynez was transformative, she said.
“I’ve loved every minute of being in this valley” she said. “By the time I’m leaving here I’m in full celebration of the life they had and my heart is healed so much because of this valley.”
Managing Editor Joe Payne is finding it difficult to learn “Wildwood Flower” on guitar himself. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 22-29, 2018.