Brown Carter was born in Corinth, Mississippi. He was a member of the Southland Quartet.
The Southland Quartet performed in the 1940’s. The group sang on radio stations WMCA (The Mutual Broad-casting System) in Corinth, Mississippi, and WENK in Union City, Tennessee. The Southland Quartet members in 1946 consisted of Lillian Howell, Brown Carter, Guy Hopkins, and Carl Barnes. In this photo taken in 1948 in Corinth, Mississippi, the group included Joe Williams, Brown Carter, Red Presson, Carl Barnes, and Larry Wallace at piano.
Southland Quartet, photo courtesy of Larry Wallace
According to Larry Wallace, he was the pianist for the quartet for two years before he went to college. Brown Carter was the leader and manager of the quartet, which had two radio programs in Corinth, one every weekday morning and another for an hour on Sunday. The Sunday broadcast was usually recorded as the quartet traveled on weekends to churches and singing conventions in north Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky. They occasionally also sang at Sacred Harp singing conventions. All of the group had to have other jobs to survive. Larry Wallace has now been a band and orchestra teacher for thirty-five years. Twenty-nine of those years he spent teaching at Wheat Ridge High School, in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.