By: Josh Kitchen / October 1, 2024
Finale of Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song in Atlanta, Georgia, September 17: Photo by Josh Kitchen
100 years ago, George Gershwin debuted Rhapsody in Blue in Manhattan. The most popular musical recordings of that year included the likes of Fred Waring, Al Jolson, and a number of other big band orchestras. Fiddlin' John Carson (born 1868), was fiddling, Bessie Smith was singing "Baby Won‘t You Please Come Home," and Robert Johnson wouldn't sell his soul to the devil at the crossroads for another decade. Rock and roll wouldn't be invented for another thirty years.
And on October 1 of 1924, President Jimmy Carter was born at the Wise Sanitorium in Plains, Georgia. Today, Jimmy Carter has reached a milestone that no other U.S. President has before him. Jimmy Carter turns 100 years old today. After the passing of President George H.W. Bush in 2018, Carter became the longest lived President. In 2023 at the age of 98, Carter entered hospice amid his wife Rosalyn's failing health so that he could stay home to be by her side. Later that year, Rosalyn would pass away at age 96. The Carter’s’ marriage lasted over 75 years.
Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter on their wedding day in 1946 (AP)
After over a year and a half in hospice, Carter has beaten the odds and has reached this remarkable milestone. In August, his grandson remarked that Carter was more interested in the upcoming Presidential election that his own 100th birthday. "I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris," Jason Carter told the Atlantic-Journal Constitution his grandfather said. Vote-by-mail ballots go out to Georgia residents in just under two weeks.
In the century since President Carter was born, the United States and the world have transformed in an unfathomable amount of ways. When President Carter was born, the U.S. population listed 114,000,000 individuals. Today that number is tripled at 330,000,000. Jimmy Carter lived through the end of the Jim Crow era, fought in World War II, saw the Civil Rights movement, witnessed a multitude of international conflicts including a cold war, an attack on the United States from Al-Quada, and an insurrection on the U.S. Capital inspired and directed by a sitting American President.
Carter is set apart from his predecessors in many ways, but one of the most special is the the ways in which he loved and celebrated music, both in his personal life and as President. The 1930's and '40's would see the evolution of Country music grow out of negro spirituals and blues music, and evolve further into rock and roll, a distinctly American genre of music.
Above: Jimmy Carter at a Future Farmers of America camp. (National Park Service)
Carter grew up on his family’s peanut farm in Plains, Georgia listening to the gospel music of the day on his family radio, where he also become enamored with country music including the Carter family (no relation), classical music, operas, and whatever popular music he could hear on that radio. Along with his early love of music, Carter would develop a love of community inspired by his religious upbringing and counted among his very first friends the Black children of the men and women who worked with for his father. It was amidst this backdrop that Carter saw the inhumanity of racism and was inspired to make change by taking care of his neighbors and the less fortunate.
Jimmy Carter at the White House with Dizzy Gillespie (Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum/NARA)
Carter saw how rock and roll and country music grew out of gospel and the religious music created by the Black southerners he grew up with. Popular music would become integral for Carter in implementing his kind of change. In his inaugural address as Governor of Georgia, Carter shocked tbe southern white establishment and drew national recognition by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” It was this radical way of thinking for a southern Governor that led to his run for President in 1976 where he would employ the help of fellow Georgians the Allman Brothers Band who were early supporters of Carter's and helped to raise millions of dollars for his candidacy. After Carter defeated incumbent President Gerald Ford, he repaid the favor by inviting the Allman's into the White House, and inviting his favorite popular musicians come to play exciting and dynamic concerts on the White House lawn.
Carter had Bob Dylan at the White House, The Band, and even Willie Nelson was rumored to have slept in the Lincoln Bedroom. While the latter is a myth, Nelson did end up smoking weed with Carter's son Chip on the White House roof!
Left: Jimmy Carter campaigning for President while wearing an Allman Brothers Band shirt. Credit: Wally Mcnamee/Corbis, via Corbis Via Getty Images
President Jimmy Carter and Willie Nelson
The concerts on the White House lawn included a great range of genres including rock music, country, blues, jazz and soul, and more. The Carters celebrated American music with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Muddy Waters, and Charles Mingus. Carter saw how under represented voices of change in America had some of their greatest champions in popular music, with Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," being a favorite of Carter's.
Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song poster by Fabian Williams
It's with Jimmy Carter's love of music in mind, my longtime passion for history, U.S. Presidents, politics, and a lifelong admiration for President Carter that I found myself lucky enough to attend President Carter's big birthday concert in Atlanta. "Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song" brought together an eclectic group of musicians and speakers just like the Carter's White House celebrations to celebrate Carter's 100th birthday at the iconic Fox Theatre.
The concert featured artists like Eric Church, The Drive-By Truckers, Angélique Kidjo, The Allman Brothers Band’s Chuck Leavell and Duane Betts, Carlene Carter, India Arie, and The B-52's. Birthday messages from Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush were played and dignitaries and activists like Dr. Bernice A. King (daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.), Renee Zellweger, and Atlanta Braves' star players Terry Pendleton and Dale Murphy were there to honor President Carter. (Everyone in the audience received an Atlanta Braves hat on the way out.)
“You can see he had a relationship to music — look at how we gathered here together tonight,” said the Carlene Carter, daughter of June Carter and step-daughter of Johnny Cash. “He used it as a powerful tool to bring people together.”
Eric Church performing The Allman Brothers' "Ramblin' Man" at Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song with Chuck Leavell and Duane Betts
Over the course of two hours, a packed audience full of Carter fans (many sporting Carter/Mondale shirts and swag) were led on a biography of Carter from his upbringing, his time in the Navy, his relationship and marriage to Rosalyn, his rise to Governor and then President of the United States, his defeat to Ronald Reagan in 1980, and to the founding of The Carter Center where Carter made eliminating disease, monitoring elections in developing democracies, and building homes for the poor and destitute it’s mission. In a video tribute video from Jon Stewart, he remarked that there are people living in homes literally built by President Jimmy Carter. Many an Allman Brothers’ tune were played with Chuck Leavell and Duane Betts playing "Jessica" and "Blue Sky," and Eric Church delivering blistering renditions of "Midnight Rambler" and "Ramblin' Man.”
Carter's grandson Jason mentioned that the event was the first time in American history that people had come together to celebrate the 100th birthday of a U.S. President. It is fitting that the first President to get to 100 is the man from Plains, a peanut farmer who spent the 40 years after his time in office continuing to make the world a better place and who came to the office with a genuine desire to do good.
Bob Dylan in Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President
Bob Dylan perhaps said it best in the documentary on Carter and how music influenced him, Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President. “It's impossible to define Jimmy. He’s a kindred spirit to me of a rare kind,” Dylan said. “The kind of man you don’t meet every day, and you’re lucky to meet if you ever do.” "He's a simple kind of man, like the Lynrd Skynrd song." Dylan goes on to quote the song. "He takes his time, he doesn't live too fast/troubles come, but they will pass/find a woman and find love/and don't forget there's always someone above."
Jimmy Carter is spending his 100th birthday in a simple way: in the house he raised his family with Rosalyn in Plains, Georgia, and surrounded by his multidtide of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and a community who loves him - a simple man indeed.
Happy Birthday, President Carter. Thank you for everything.
All ticket sales to Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song went towards The Carter Center and its "fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering."
Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song airs today on Georgia Public Broadcasting and President Carter will be watching.
Support the Carter Center here: https://www.cartercenter.org/about/index.html
Photograph courtesy of the Carter Center
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