Carlene Carter

A Strong Country Lady 

‘This hell-raising angel’s had a fair share of heartache. . ./But you’ll never know just how it feels/’Til you fall all apart and your heart don’t wanna heal,’ she pines on the title song. A plaintive piano ballad sweetened by strings, the song also throbs with longing for her late sister. ‘Wanna crawl in that dark hole and curl up beside her/Wanna cradle her sweet soul and never let go,’ Carlene sings.
Nods to her mother can be heard in the autoharp and Wildwood Flower-like lilt of To Change Your Heart, and to her step-dad in the locomotive, boom-chicka rhythms of The Bitter End. More than anything, though, Carlene’s album is about pressing on, as her mother liked to say, with humour and gratitude amid the storms of life.
It was marrying actor Joseph Breen in 2006 that helped Carlene battle those storms of life and helped her return to the fray of a being a songwriter, singer and performer…

This is an extract of a feature first printed in issue 70 of Maverick Magazine. You can order a copy of this issue, including a longer version of this article, using our secure on-line store:

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