Carlene Carter comes back to her heritage

            Carlene Carter's upcoming show at Joe's Pub kicks off what the country music heiress/diva hopes will be a big year.

            Following a gig in Alberta, she'll be at the New York showcase club on Jan. 26, with huge fan Tammy Faye Starlite opening. She's then off to Buffalo and Geneva, N.Y., before focusing on a career-spanning box set and a new concert concept.

            "My goal for the year is to keep working just enough to keep people interested in me, because I'm notorious for not working in between records--and with all the hiccups in my life," she says, alluding to her crazed, drug-addled years following such big early 1990s country hits as "I Fell In Love" and "Every Little Thing."

            "But life is really good now," she continues. "I'm trying to put a box set together for the fall. The working title is Thirty-three And A Third, because I'll have been in the business that long. And Joe [actor husband Joseph Breen] and I are writing a script for a TV show based on when we first met and moved to L.A.--and he's working on his acting career. So we're just churning along and I'm feeling optimistic about 2011, that it will be a really great year all around."

            Now residing near Santa Barbara, Carter, who is the daughter of the late country music legends June Carter Cash and Carl Smith, is also putting together a new multimedia road show.

            "I just got to get my hands on the stuff that Mom, Helen and Anita [her mother's sisters and fellow Carter Family members] and I recorded in the '80s with [legendary rock 'n' roll and country producer] Cowboy Jack Clement," she says. "He dug out all his home movies and I'm trying to put together film of [the Carter sisters] and then sing with them, using visuals and props. It will be a more intimate show, without a full band and with me talking more about the songs."

            At Joe's Pub, Carter plans to "dig back" into her catalog and the historic Carter Family country songbook, as well as sing songs from her acclaimed 2008 album Stronger, which neighbor Bernie Taupin called "a staggering achievement by one of the great voices and fearless hearts of country rock."

            "I'm trying to do a retrospective of my career, which is kind of hard to do in an hour or so!" she says.

            But those who remember her as much for her sexy appearance as her music are in for a surprise. While still beautiful, Carter is now a grandmother and looks and sounds much like her mother, whom she played in a 2005 Nashville production Wildwood Flowers: The June Carter Story--a musical about the Carter Family and named after the Carter Family classic.

            "To be honest, sometimes I walk by a mirror and go, 'Who's that? Mom? No! It's me!" she shrieks. "Looking and acting like her wasn't a huge stretch. The biggest thing was learning how not to cuss on stage! But now that I'm a grandma I manage myself a little bit better!"

            She also credits the short-lived musical with "getting me back to singing--and singing those old songs and lighting the fire" to write her own songs and perform again. The death of her father last year brought her "full circle," she says.

            "He was a big part of my life the last few years," she says. "I used to do [his hit] 'You Are The One' and might do it again in the fall when I have the visual stuff."

            Speaking of visuals, she laughs at the promo pictures supplied in the press release announcing the Joe's Pub show. She's pictured in a black-and-white pose with an autoharp, looking ever so much like her mother. Starlite, a brilliantly outrageous country songstress who recently portrayed the decadent Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico in her original theatrical production Chelsea Mädchen, is shown seductively wrapped in a flimsy coverlet.

            "I recently found the tiniest, most microscopic skirt that looks like a Band-Aid--that I wore all the time," she laughs. "Now I can't get one leg into it!"

            Says Starlite, "It's a surreal dream come true to be sharing the stage with this legend who has been such a huge influence. On some level, it's like the New York Dolls opening for the Rolling Stones."

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