Janette Carter Dies

Janette Carter, the last surviving child of country music's founding Carter Family, who in recent years preserved her parents' oldtime style with weekly performances, has died. She was 82.

Family members said Carter, who had battled Parkinson's disease and other illnesses, was taken to the Holston Valley Medical Center on Tuesday. Her family said she appeared to be improving for a time, but died on Sunday.

Carter was the daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter. Her parents and her father's sister-in-law Maybelle Carter formed a singing trio discovered in 1927 when talent scout Ralph Peer came through the Tennessee-Virginia border town of Bristol to record mountain music.

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"It's good for younger people to know this kind of music," Janette Carter said in a 2002 Associated Press story. "There was a time when music told a story; it wasn't just some beat."

On his deathbed, she said, her father "called me over and said 'Janette, I want you to continue the music the way we'd done it.'"

At the time of the 2002 interview, she was still giving concerts every Saturday at the Carter Family Fold, an auditorium built from railroad ties and school bus seats near the family farm in Hiltons. She played autoharp.

Rest In Peace, Janette.