Charlene Boyd on her June Carter Cash Fringe show: 'this is the story people are less likely to know'

In a sense, the name tells the story; the tale of a woman now best known as the wife and stage partner of one of the greatest singer-songwriters ever to emerge from the country and western tradition. Yet for decades before she married Johnny Cash, June Carter had a remarkable career of her own, both as an award-winning singer-songwriter with her own Carter Family – stars of the country music scene – and as an actress training and working in New York. And she achieved all this – in her teens, twenties and thirties – while marrying twice, enduring two heartbreaking divorces, and becoming the single mother of two little girls, one from each marriage.

Advertisement Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. It was this story – so full of drama and glamour, and yet in some ways so familiar – that drew the Glasgow-based actress and singer Charlene Boyd to learn more about June Carter Cash, and to create a show about her; and the result is her first-ever play, June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music, And Me, set to open at Summerhall during this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, before a month-long Scottish tour. “My mum sang in a country-and-western wedding band when I was a wee girl gro.