Joe Carter was the son of Sara and A.P. Carter, and had helped to carry the music of the Carter Family throughout his life. He and his sister Janette founded the Carter Family Fold in 1974, and he features prominently in several of my photographs of Johnny Cash in 2003. Joe and the Carter Family also spent some time in Charlotte, NC in the early '40s, when the Family hosted two radio shows for WBT.

Joe was both a manchild, and a man among men. He loved slingshots, and he and Johnny Cash would spend hours practicing their aim on Joe's front porch. He also was the last living member of the Carter Family (and possibly the last living person) to have attended the famed Bristol sessions of August, 1927, an event that changed the future of American music. He sang in that famed baritone voice of his father, ang gave you a reason to smile every time you saw him.

Although I dislike taking photos at events such as funerals, Joe's passing is the loss of another person that affected my life, and helped to change the lives of many others. I cannot capture in photographs and words what Joe Carter meant to so many people. All I can tell you is that I'll miss him.
-Daniel Coston
March 11, 2005