On March 1, 1968, country music stars Johnny Cash and June Carter tied the knot inside the First United Methodist Church in Franklin, Kentucky. Notably, it wasn’t the first marriage for either of them. Cash had divorced his first wife, Vivian, two years earlier. Meanwhile, Carter was married first to country singer Carl Smith from 1952 to 1956, followed by a second marriage to Edwin “Rip” Nix, a former football player and police officer, from 1957 to 1966. Today, we’re taking a look at the life and career of Carl Smith, born on this day (March 15) in 1927.
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Carl Smith Was the Second Country Superstar to Come Out of His Hometown
Born and raised in Maynardville, Tennessee—also the hometown of country music icon Roy Acuff—Carl Smith grew up, like many, listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. Taking up the guitar as a child, Smith launched his performing career in 1944 at Knoxville radio station WROL.
Serving in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1947, he returned to WROL after completing his service. In 1950, Smith joined the Grand Ole Opry and signed with Columbia Records.
He didn’t have to wait long for success. Smith reached No. 2 on the country chart with his 1951 song “Let’s Live a Little.” That year brought three more hits, including his first No. 1, “Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way.”
In 1952, Smith married June Carter, of country music’s famous Carter Family. Three years later, the couple welcomed their only child, Rebecca Carlene Smith—now better known as Carlene Carter.
[RELATED: Carlene Carter Once Embarrassed Johnny Cash on Stage So Bad He Turned “Red in the Face”]
Just one year after their daughter’s birth, Carl Smith and June Carter divorced in 1956 after four years of marriage. Smith temporarily relinquished his Grand Ole Opry membership after their split. By the next year, both had remarried—Carter to a police officer named Edwin Nix; and Smith to another country singer, Goldie Hill. They remained married until her death in 2005 at age 72, from complications of cancer.
By the 1960s, Smith’s country music career was cooling. In the late 1970s, he retired to pursue his other passion, raising cutting horses.
Carl Smith died on Jan. 16, 2010, at his Franklin, Tennessee home. He was 82 years old and survived by two sons, Carl Jr. and Larry Dean, and two daughters, Carlene and Lori Lynn.
Featured image by Underwood Archives/Getty Images
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