Carlene Carter has always straddled the line between country and rock. Beginning her career as a rock singer in the mid-70s, she became immersed in the new wave in the late 70s, before emerging as a new country singer in the late 80s, Throughout it all, her music has always infused roots music — whether country or rock & roll — with a nervy, edgy energy.

Carlene is the daughter of June Carter and Carl Smith, who divorced when their daughter was just two. June would frequently take her daughter on Carter Family tours, which meant that Carlene developed a musical interest at an early age. When she was 12, her mother married Johnny Cash. Following the marriage, Carlene and her stepsister, Rosanne Cash, became backup singers in the Carter/Cash touring show.

At the age of 15 she married Joe Simpkins and had a child; they were divorced within a few years. Carter enrolled in college as a piano major in her late teens, but she never graduated. At 19, she married Jack Routh and had another child; they were divorced within two years.

In 1978, she decided to pursue a musical career, heading to Los Angeles where she received a record contract with Warner Bros. Her debut album, Carlene Carter, was a rock & roll record recorded in London with Graham Parkers backing band, the Rumour. The following year, she released her second album, Two Sides to Every Woman, which featured support from the Doobie Brothers. That same year she married singer/songwriter/producer Nick Lowe, who was currently the co-leader of the new wave rock & roll revival band, Rockpile. Lowe helped Carter shape her musical direction in the early 80s, and her third album — the new wave-inflected country-rock record Musical Shapes (1980) — showed the influence of Lowe, Rockpile, and Dave Edmunds. Although the album was critically acclaimed, it was a commercial failure. She followed Musical Shapes in 1981 with Blue Nun, which continued to pursue a new wave-country direction; like its predecessor, it was ignored.