The fabled “First Family of Country Music,” the Carters all but invented the genre in the late 1920s, giving name (No Depression) to a movement and a daughter (June Carter Cash) to history in the bargain. Produced by John Carter Cash, grandson of family co-founder Maybelle, “The Unbroken Circle” finds artists such as Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Sheryl Crow and Johnny Cash taking on one of country’s most mythologized canons. Drawn almost equally from the group’s vast well of spirituals and Depression-era ballads, most everything hews closely to the spirit of the originals, which means lots of spare, pristine acoustic tracks and gorgeous harmonies. “Circle” has a few notable omissions (“Keep on the Sunny Side” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” are both MIA) but is otherwise sublime.
