Back to the old country

Life seems to have come full circle for Carlene Carter - her new album was recorded in the studio where her mother, June, worked with Johnny Cash, she tells Brian O'Connell

The Old Ground Hotel in Ennis, Co Clare, is about as far removed from Nashville as you can get. Seated in the lobby, Carlene Carter and new husband Joe Breen come across like any other tourist couple. Yet here is a tourist couple with a difference: in the early 1990s, Carlene, daughter of June Carter and Carl Smith, and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash, was one of Nashville's brightest young talents, while her husband was one of the best known soap stars on US television, having played roles in As the World Turns and Guiding Light.

Yet both lost their way to addiction, got on the wagon, fell off it, spent some years in the wilderness, and eventually found sobriety and love, solace and affection, in each other. This is to be their first interview together since marrying in Jamaica last March. They are each still a little wary of the media, having been tabloid fodder in the past. As I sit down, Carlene hands me an advance copy of her new album, the appropriately titled Stronger, her first recording in 11 years, which is due out next year. Music aficionados will remember that Carlene once married British roots-rocker Nick Lowe, and found success with songs such as On I Fell in Love, Little Love Letters, and Little Acts of Treason.

In recent years she has made the headlines for different reasons. There was the arrest in New Mexico in 2001 for heroin possession. Two years later, her boyfriend and musical partner, Howie Epstein, former bassist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, died of a drug overdose. As recently as 2004, Carlene found herself in jail for a probation violation on a drink driving charge. Shortly after, approaching 50, she went into a recovery programme where she met Breen. The pair have been inseparable since.

With her life stable, the next logical step for Carlene was to think about making music. "I think with all that has happened I really needed to put this album out," she says, "my little brother John Carter Cash produced it, and we recorded in at the studio where my parents used to record, at Cash Cabin Studio in Nashville. I hadn't been in there since the last time I sang with my mom. But I guess things have worked out the way they needed to. I didn't jump in and try too much to sing after they passed. I needed a little time."

Carlene's earliest musical memories are sitting on her grandmother's knee, Mother Maybelle Carter, and being taught Carter family songs. Like it or not, country music is embedded in her psyche. "A year ago I wasn't positive about making music any more. But there's just something in me that I can't stop. I have to get it out somehow and music is the most natural way for me. As I've gotten older, I've been able to hone my craft. But the songs that really speak to me, and the ones that I guess speak to other people, come from my roots or what I learned from osmosis. Growing up I didn't know much about country music other than the Carter Family or Johnny Cash, which I guess isn't a bad start!"

Breen nods. In his opinion, the world needs the Carter sound now more than ever. "Country music is too manufactured these days - too safe, too slick. It's a good time for Carlene to be getting back into playing," he adds.

Fresh from a European tour, the pair were amazed that Carlene can still command a sizeable audience, given that she has been out of the loop for almost a decade. Admittedly the success of the movie Walk The Line has been a factor. Carlene herself wholeheartedly endorses the cinematic portrayal of her family, and took time to give advice to actress Reese Witherspoon during the film's making.

"When Reese smiles, it's like she's smiling from inside - my mom was like that," she said. Carlene would herself play her mom shortly after the film's release, in a stage musical called Wildwood Flowers. Since then, she has appeared at various tribute concerts, before deciding to take her own show on the road this year.

"In America you think that if you go away any length of time, people forget. I used take two or three years between albums, and I'd have record companies screaming at me for material. I'd be saying, it's not ready yet, and you'd end up just about having enough songs to fill it. I'm enjoying the writing process much more now: I always try to wring everything out of me. There's certainly a lot there to wring out!"

During recent concerts, Carlene has been inviting Breen on stage to perform Jackson - which June and Johnny Cash sang together for years. She also performs It Takes One to Know Me - written four decades ago as a birthday present for the man she calls "Big John". She thought Cash had never recorded it, but it turned up last year as the final track on the Cash boxed set The Legend.

"I didn't have enough money to buy Big John a present, so I wrote that song for him. It seems appropriate to be singing it now, given everything I have gone through. I think both he and mom would have been proud. At least, I hope they are."

Neither Carter nor Breen are in any rush to get back on the publicity trail. They're taking it one day at a time and glad of a second chance. Having recently moved from LA back to Nashville, both are revelling in the quiet life. "I think we're just real glad to have met each other and for both of us to be well at the moment," says Breen. "We'd both been sober before, and then both of us kind of went astray and got into a little trouble. We can't believe how good our life is now. It makes us appreciate what we have."