I spotted the Carter Family CD box set on the shelf in the background of my See the World! launch date photo. I love hearing the roots of contemporary music, so I called up “Can the Circle Be Unbroken,” the 1935 Carter Family original recording of the song that has become an Americana standard. It’s a lovely piece of music and musical history.
One fun little detail is that the Carters pick up the tempo within a few bars of the opening notes. Our modern OCD approach to musical recordings would probably scrap that take and have the family start over, maintaining a precise number of beats per minute throughout the song.
I like Roy Acuff’s philosophy as he states on the album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, to put everything you’ve got into the first take because you lose a little of the energy and spontaneity with each repetition.
There’s also something to be said about Take 83, if the goal is to craft a new song into something akin to perfection. Take 1 has the fresh energy, but the 50th take may have the relaxed air of familiarity now that everyone’s learned the song and nailed it down. I do prefer the DVD version of Brian Wilson Presents Smile to the original CD, because by the time they made the video they played with the confidence that comes from repeated performances.
I feel a sense of awe listening to the Carters sing a song that has now been shared millions of times by thousands of singers, because this is the very first recording. Did the people in the studio that day, 90 years ago, realize they were capturing lightning in a bottle?
