AmericanaFest closed out on a high note Saturday night with a lineup of master songwriters... Carter played what you might call traditional rock ’n’ roll, but nothing about it felt canned or nostalgic. With a superb band that included guitarist Chris Casello, Carter did it all, essaying one-chord rockers that turned the beat around, swung like crazy and never let up for a second. It was like catching a handbill that advertised the mastery of the rock-country past in a newly developed Nashville neighborhood. It was the kind of set that reaffirmed your faith in music.” - Olivia Ladd and Edd Hurt

Nashville Scene (September 27, 2021)

Long before the Taylor Swifts, Miranda Lamberts and Brandi Carliles, Carlene Carter set the standard for today’s independent, self-empowered, and irrepressible female country artists—and she did so when country music, as Barbara Mandrell sang in her 1981 CMA Single of the Year, 'wasn’t cool.'” - Jim Bessman

SPIN (November 29, 2020)

Scrolling through the list of family contributors is like wading through the begats in the Bible, a musical collective curated by producer John Carter Cash and Carlene Carter, Maybelle Carter’s granddaughter and daughter of June Carter Cash.” - Grant Britt

No Depression (October 17, 2019)

Performing with only her guitar player Chris Casello, Carter brought downhome to an audience very excited to see her. They sang loudly with her on her mother’s composition, “Ring Of Fire,” and “Will The Circle Be Unbroken;” they stood in unison for not one but four standing ovations; and after a keyboard malfunction caused her to sing “Lonesome Valley” a cappella, someone yelled out “Brilliant!” Then there were the stories. You couldn’t ask for a better storyteller than Carlene Carter. “I crack my own self up sometimes,” she said while doing “My Dixie Darling.”” - Leslie Michele Derrough

Glide Magazine (February 20, 2019)

Carlene Carter concluded her first “Wonderful World of Women Who Write” series of in-the-round performances at Nashville’s Bluebird Café Tuesday night, with the casual atmosphere, off-kilter humor, surprise guests and memorable performances making for an enchanting pre-Halloween treat. Featuring Gretchen Peters and Matraca Berg, with additional unannounced performances by Terri Clark and Erin Enderlin, the two-hour show at Nashville’s iconic listening room was yet another reminder of the empowering role of women in country music.” - Stephen L. Betts

Rolling Stone (October 31, 2018)

As the granddaughter of pioneering guitar player Mother Maybelle Carter, music is at the core of Carlene’s DNA. Just as June Carter’s "Ring of Fire," written with Merle Kilgore, transformed her mother’s life, Carter’s "Easy From Now On" — a collaboration with Guy Clark’s wife Susanna in the late Seventies — set Carter on her songwriting path when the song was covered by Emmylou Harris. It would make a further impact when Miranda Lambert cut the song for her 2007 Crazy Ex-Girlfriend LP.” - Stephen L. Betts

Rolling Stone (October 2, 2018)

Review: John Mellencamp's 'Sad Clowns & Hillbillies' at the Mann, with Emmylou Harris and Carlene Carter. Carter was the evening’s secret weapon. As Harris rightly noted, the daughter of singer Carl Smith and June Carter Cash is “country music royalty,” and after a long absence, the former country rock spitfire has had a career renaissance in recent years, often revisiting the classic country tunes pioneered by her forebears in the Carter Family... The 61-year-old grandmother of seven boasted the most robust voice on stage, and is as spunky of a performer as ever...” - Dan DeLuca

The Philadelphia Inquirer (July 7, 2017)

It's my first time, after all of these years of my history with Emmylou, that we've actually been on a tour together. We're just enjoying that so much. The other night, Emmy and I were both packing up our dressing room bags, walking down the hallway pulling our own bags. People think we have all these assistants and people who do stuff for us, but there's me and Emmy going down the hallway, and she says, "Look at us, Carlene, a couple of old gals and we're still out here doing it!” - David Klein

Indy Week (June 21, 2017)

Opening act Carlene Carter was all about the intimacy. She performed alone for most of her short set, and her compelling voice and out-sized personality made it feel as if she were sitting in your lap. Her set was heavy on material from her most recent album, “Carter Girl,” a collection of songs first recorded by The Carter Family beginning in the late 1920s. The Carter family was ground zero for country music as we know it, and Carter carried the weight of that immense legacy with an easy grace and rich humanity.” - Jeffrey Lee Puckett

The Louisville Courier-Journal (January 23, 2015)

Tony Bennett, Marianne Faithfull, Leonard Cohen, Lucinda Williams, Robert Plant, Stevie Nicks, Willie Nelson, Bette Midler, and Carlene Carter were all in top form in 2014, with voices that have mellowed like fine wines... Decades removed from her ’90s heyday as a high-octane country spitfire, Carter sang “I’ll Be All Smiles Tonight” from the perspective of a survivor.” - James Reed

The Boston Globe (December 20, 2014)