Wildwood Flower [Audio CD] June Carter Cash

June Carter Cash's final album (she died in May, 2003) is a microcosm of a magnificent seven-decade legacy that began in the 1930s when she and her two sisters joined their mother in the Original Carter Family. After years recording with them, alone, and with husband Johnny Cash , her solo career found new life on her 1999 masterpiece Press On. As straightforward as ever, she revisits many Carter Family standards and a few of her lesser-known originals. Yet even on the deeper, darker numbers, her tone is anything but funereal. Her feisty performance of Red Ingle's 1947 novelty "Temptation" ("Tim-Tay-Shun") with Johnny revives the playfulness at the heart of their duets. Her family members, including daughter Carlene Carter, singing backup and the elegant accompaniment from a tiny acoustic band including Norman and Nancy Blake bolster and enhance her weathered voice. In bringing down the curtain herself, as she does on the Carter Family's timeless ballads "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone" and "Wildwood Flower," she demonstrates the grace, class and courage befitting both a Carter-and a Cash. -- Rich Kienzle