Can the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music's First Family (2012)

Even a half century after they cut their last record, it's almost impossible to overstate the influence of The Original Carter Family (A.P. Carter, his wife Sara, and her sister Maybelle): They did it first; they did it best. Just listen to Maybelle's astonishing guitar work and A.P.'s haunting baritone on Can the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music's First Family 's ''My Clinch Mountain Home'' and try not to imagine the somnolent magic of a backwoods hollow, a freshly washed gingham dress, the dusty grit of a lonely country road. Spare, spiritual, and unsentimental — a tonic for our times. A