8
street roots
O ct 10, 2014
up, I thought, “Aw, this is too good. He’s
ascending into heaven.” And so I made the
sign of the cross like the pope would make,
you know like waving my hand in the air?
And the last thing I saw of him was him
throwing his head back and slapping his
knee and laughing as he disappeared into
the ceiling. ! made Johnny Cash laugh.
Three weeks later he was gone.
Mother Maybelle, far left, and the Carter
Sisters, with June doing the jig in the middle.
S.Z.: The film focuses greatly on Maybelle
and Sarah Carter and how their music has
influenced musicians across the board.
B.H.: They both made incredible
contributions (to music) that have been lost
to some degree in time. In terms of our
consciousness. Obviously what they’ve done
still resonates, but I don’t think most people
could turn and point to them and say, “The
Carter sisters influenced me.”
Sarah’s voice is iconic. She was one of
the first people to Cultivate that sound: the
bluegrass voice that sends chills up your
spine.
.
Maybélle’s contribution to guitar playing
is really unrecognized.
She helped invent a certain way of.
playing a guitar that popularized it as more
bf a lead instrument when it was really just
a percussion instrument in those days. Out
of necessity, she learned how to fill in those
gaps musically with her guitar. That became
the “Carter Scratch” that launched the
guitar into a whole new place in American
music all thanks to this little lady from a
small town in Virginia.
P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F J U N E C A R T E R A N D J O H N N Y C A S H F A M IL Y /T H E W IN D IN G S T R E A M
Family values
Portland filmmaker Beth Harrington talks about her project
documenting June Carter and Johnny Cash, with one
memorable appearance from the Man in Black himself
BY SUE ZALOKAR
STAFF WRITER
S.Z.: In March your film, "The Winding
Stream, ” made its premiere at SXSW. Since
that time, it has been screened all over the
world. The film took you a decade to complete
-* 1 * mostly due to raising the funds for the film.
B.H.: The thing about film is that you
get to be in all of these different worlds.
Every single film is sorhe learning
experience in some new arena that you
never im agined you would be in.
yjiy teá so n Tffi rharried to a volcano
scientist is because in
19911 was given the
job of being an
associate producer on
a NOVA (episode) that
was about the
eruption of a volcano
in the Philippines.
Never in a million
years did I think I
would a) marry a
scientist, b) he’d be a
volcanologist, c) that
he would live in the
Pacific Northwest,
and d) that I would
move there. But here
I am. Film takes you
to all sorts of places.
I was trying to
wind up my courage
to ask her that and
was so relieved, but I
asked her if he was
up for it? He’s just
lost June, he’s sick, is
this a good time? She
said, “There isn’t
going to be a good
time. Now is the time.
You’ve got to do it.”
S.Z.: What is it like
When my crew and
to be a woman in the
Beth Harrington
I arrived in Nashville,
independent film
we learned that
industry?.
(Johnny Cash) had gone to the hospital that
day. Rosanne told us to sit tight and
B.H.: Honestly, I felt at tire beginning
hopefully he’ll be out of the hospital in a
that
it was a little bit of a struggle. That was
couple of days. We really couldn’t afford to 5
a long time ago. Then it seemed to get
sit around in Nashville, and then just before
easier as I kind of proved my worth as a
we were ready to leave, we got the call.
filmmaker. And lately, I’ve been looking
He was totally animated. He obviously
around and thinking, “Where’d all the girls
wasn’t feeling WeH, but he didn’t let that
go?”
stop him from telling us stories.
I’m 59 years old, and I look around for
The funniest part of the whole interview,
my peers and I think, “No one else is crazy
was he came into the room in an elevator
enough to be doing this? Is that it?” I think
that came down out of the ceiling. And so
it is.
the image of Johnny Cash that is forever
ortland is such a musical town. I t
makes sense that the first time I met
Beth Harrington, it was at a women’s
music night at a mutual friend’s home. I
remember she wanted to play “Dancing
B.H. I don’t have kids of my own, but my
Barefoot” by Patti Smith. Immediately, I Was nephew is 12 and I started this film hefore
smitten.
my nephew was borft.; For all of his life, I
It wasn’t until much later that I would
have been working on this film. And you
realize Beth Harrington was a filmmaker
know what? It’s been about a quarter of m y
with a Grammy nomination under her belt
life. It’s crazy. I never expected to work on a
for her film, “Welcome to the Club: The
project for that long.
Women of Rockabilly.”
Once I was entrusted with the material —
Harrington works for Oregon Public
I had one of the last interviews with Johnny
Broadcasting and has worked in public
Cash — I thought I can’t walk away from
television contributing to such programs
this. I have to g etit done.
American Experience, NOVA and Frontline.
She’s been making films for more than 30
S.Z.: One of the last?;
years.
In March, Harrington debuted her latest
B.H.: It turned out that Kurt Coder from
film, “The Winding Stream” at South by
MTV went to Johnny Cash’s house after we
Southwest, the annual music festival in ;
were there and interviewed him for the
Austin, Texas. The film is about The Carter
MTV awards. But I’m pretty damn sure that
Family and Johnny Cash — their effect on
ours was the last interview that he talked
one another as well as the effect they had
about the Carter family and June and their
together on American music. The film
relationship.
features one of the last interviews before
Ours was an interview that meant a lot to
Cash’s death in 2003. The film currently is
him. He clearly wanted to talk about June
burnt in my mind is him in this
being screened worldwide.
and Maybelle.
(transparent) phone booth, descending into
Harrington has contributed a solid
this room.
documentation of The Carter Family legacy.
§.2,.: Johnny Cash is timeless. I loved him,
It took a long time. It probably took a
She would love to see a wider distribution of my grandfather loved him. What was it like to
minute for the thing to come down out of
The Carter Family story. She is also
interview Johnny Cash?
the ceiling so my crew and I - we were all
currently looking to archive much of the
nervous as cats - and we’re waving to him
material and. footage she has at a University
B.H.: For one thing, it came up very
and he’s waving back.
library.
suddenly. I had interviewed Rosanne Cash.
You will appreciate also that at the end of
“The Winding Stream” will be shown at
She had been very helpful to me - not only
the interview, he stood up to get back into
the Reel Music Film Festival tomorrow,.
with this film, but she also narrated
the elevator to go back upstairs and he said,
Saturday, Oc. 11 at the Portland Art
“Welcome to the Club.” We did a short
' “I’ve gotta get back in the Popemobile now.”
Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW
interview and she said, “You know what you
Which erf course tickled me to no end. And
Park Avenue.
should do next? You have to interview my
then as he got in and went back up.
father.”
It took another minute for him to go back
P
S.Z.: It seems youhave an affinity for
history and the natural world. And of course
music...
S.Z.: You were raised Catholic. You wrote,
directed and played the lead character (you) in
a film called “The Blinking Madonna” that
offered a gentle critique of the Catholic Church
in 1996. It screened first at Notre Dame to a .
room full of priests, nuns and Catholic
scholars.
B.H.: (laughs) Ha! Yes it was!
S.Z.: How was that received?
B.H.: Oh my god! It didn’t occur to me
See HARRIN GTO N , page 9