This July 4th Independence Day Celebration at Edmund Pendleton School, hosted by the Reedy Church Ruritans, will be a particularly special one because Ronnie Williams & The Carter Family Sound will play a tribute to "Mother Maybelle" Carter, the country music legend and star of the Grand Ole Opry and the Johnny Cash Show, whose 100th birthday was this year.
Born May 10, 1909 near Nickelsville, Virginia, Maybelle Addington, made an impact on traditional American music that continues to this day, influencing not only bluegrass and country but rock as well. Performing with her daughters June, Anita and Helen, she immortalized songs like "Keep on the Sunny Side" and "Wildwood Flower," and influenced musicians like Chris Hillman of The Byrds.
She was the first woman inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and is considered the "Mother" of country music. Known for her "mothering," she showed buttons for Elvis Presley and ironed Johnny Cash's famous black shirts.
She made a big impression on Ronnie Williams who fell in love with the Carter Family watching them on television when he was a little boy. When he was 12 and attending their performance in 1970 at the Richmond Mosque, he asked a guard after the show if he could go backstage and meet Maybelle. He got his wish. Like a grandmother, Mother Maybelle, then 60, chatted with the tall smiling boy, showing him her fabled guitar and the autoharp she made famous.
"She made me feel like I'd known her forever," he remembers.
Impressed at his interest in her music, she gave him her phone number and address. They kept in touch, and Williams was a regular visitor backstage when the Carter Family performed in central Virginia. Maybelle and her daughters would also come and play in Caroline at Edmund Pendleton School.
By the time Williams was 17, he had his own autoharp and was learning to play Carter Family songs by listening to their records. He had become friends with all the Carters – Helen, Anita, June, and Mother Maybelle's son-in-law Johnny Cash.
After Mother Maybelle's death, Helen taught him some tricks of her mother's style and found him a guitar like hers, a 1929 L-5 Gibson model. Williams learned to play in Maybelle's innovative technique known as "The Carter Scratch," picking the melody with the thumb-pick on the bass string and middle strings while playing rhythm on the high strings with the index finger. Helen also gave him her accordion which he still plays when the band performs.
"They were really nice people, all of 'em. They treated me like family," Williams recalls. "I don't know what made'em take to me like that. They had thousands of fans."
Mother Maybelle was five-foot-two and Williams six-foot-two. Nevertheless, "Walkin' up to her was like walkin' up to a giant," Williams likes to say.
And so the music of Mother Maybelle lives on. "Honey, he's as  close to sounding like the Carter Family as anyone that I know of," said Maybelle's grandniece Rita Forrester.

The July 4th Festivities at Edmund Pendleton School, located on Doggett's Fork Road, begin at 11:00 a.m with an auction. The barbecue chicken dinner starts at 3:00, and Ronnie Williams & The Carter Family Sound perform at 6:30.