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50 free June Carter Cash trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This June Carter Cash trivia quiz covers the whole of a sixty-year career: growing up in Maces Spring, Virginia as Mother Maybelle's daughter, the Carter Sisters on Richmond radio and the Grand Ole Opry, the 'Aunt Polly' comedy routine, acting lessons with Lee Strasberg, and the songs everyone knows — 'Ring of Fire', which she co-wrote, and 'Jackson', the duet that won her first Grammy with Johnny Cash. There are questions on her three husbands and three children (Carlene Carter, Rosie Nix Adams and John Carter Cash), the on-stage proposal in London, Ontario, her three solo albums, her late-life Grammys for Press On and Wildwood Flower, the video for 'Hurt', Reese Witherspoon's Oscar-winning portrayal in Walk the Line, and her posthumous induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2025. If you want more on the man in black himself, BrainPickle also has a Johnny Cash quiz. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and each question carries a citation to the page it came from. No lyrics are quoted.
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Q 01In which state was June Carter born, at Maces Spring, in 1929?
Virginia
June Carter was born in Maces Spring, Virginia, on June 23, 1929, in the Clinch Mountain country of Scott County, the second daughter of Maybelle Carter.
Q 02What was June's actual first name?
Valerie
She was born Valerie June Carter on June 23, 1929, and went by her middle name, June, for her whole career.
Q 03In which city did the original Carter Family first record for Ralph Peer in August 1927?
Bristol, Tennessee
Ralph Peer's Bristol sessions of August 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee produced the Carter Family's first six sides for Victor, including 'Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow'.
Q 04How many Grammy Awards did June Carter Cash win in her lifetime and posthumously?
Five
Five in total: two duet Grammys with Johnny Cash (1968 and 1971), one for Press On in 2000, and two in 2004 for the posthumous Wildwood Flower.
Q 05Which instrument did June play in the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle?
Autoharp
June's instrument in the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle was the Autoharp, a chorded zither she strummed while singing; she also played guitar, banjo and harmonica.
Q 06What was the name of June Carter's signature comic character in the family act?
Aunt Polly
Aunt Polly was the rustic comic character June played in the Carter Sisters' stage and radio shows, her clowning a fixture of the act from the 1940s.
Q 07Which future Nashville legend was the Carter Sisters' guitarist and the reason the Opry initially refused them?
Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins played guitar for the act from 1949; Nashville's session guitarists feared losing work to him, so the Opry balked until Maybelle insisted and it relented in 1950.
Q 08In which city was the Carter Sisters' radio act based, on station KWTO, in 1949?
Springfield, Missouri
KWTO in Springfield, Missouri carried the act in 1949, after earlier stints at WRVA in Richmond and WNOX in Knoxville; from Springfield they moved to the Grand Ole Opry in 1950.
Q 09Which famous film director saw June at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and encouraged her to study acting?
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan, the director of On the Waterfront, saw her Grand Ole Opry act in 1955 and urged her to study acting, which she went on to do in New York.
Q 10June studied acting in New York with Sanford Meisner and which famous Method teacher?
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg, the Actors Studio's famed Method teacher, and Sanford Meisner taught June in New York in the mid-1950s, before her first television acting roles.
Q 11In which Robert Duvall film of the late 1990s did June play 'Momma' Dewey?
The Apostle
The Apostle, which Robert Duvall wrote, directed and starred in, cast June as the mother of his Pentecostal preacher Sonny; the role earned Duvall a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
Q 12On which 1990s TV drama did June play Sister Ruth, wife of Johnny Cash's character Kid Cole?
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman cast Johnny Cash as Kid Cole and June as his wife Sister Ruth; its star Jane Seymour's husband James Keach later produced Walk the Line.
Q 13'Ring of Fire' was co-written by June Carter and which songwriter?
Merle Kilgore
Q 21The couple's first co-billed collaboration album, released in 1967, was called what?
Carryin' On
Carryin' On with Johnny Cash and June Carter, released in 1967, included 'Jackson' and 'Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man'; a second co-billed album, Johnny Cash and His Woman, followed in 1973.
Q 22June was a regular on The Johnny Cash Show during which years?
1969 to 1971
1969 to 1971 were the years ABC aired The Johnny Cash Show from Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, with June and the Carter Family as regulars alongside the Statler Brothers and Carl Perkins.
Q 23How many solo albums did June Carter Cash record in her lifetime?
Three
Merle Kilgore, a singer-songwriter who later managed Hank Williams Jr., co-wrote it with June, who drew the lyric from her turbulent feelings for Cash while he was married to someone else.
Q 14Who was the first singer to record 'Ring of Fire', in 1962?
Anita Carter
Anita Carter, June's younger sister, cut the song first as '(Love's) Ring of Fire' in 1962; when her single went nowhere, Cash recorded his own version the next year.
Q 15How many weeks did Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire' spend at number one on the country chart in 1963?
Seven
Seven weeks at number one on Billboard's country chart in 1963 made 'Ring of Fire' Cash's biggest hit to that point; it also reached number 17 on the Hot 100.
Q 16Who claimed Cash gave June half the 'Ring of Fire' credit because 'she needs the money'?
Vivian Liberto, his first wife
Vivian said Cash told her he wrote it with Kilgore and Curly Lewis while fishing.
Q 17June's first notable studio duet with Johnny Cash, in 1964, was on which Bob Dylan song?
It Ain't Me Babe
It Ain't Me Babe, Cash's 1964 single with June on harmony, reached the country top ten and preceded their first duet hit 'Jackson' by three years.
Q 18'Jackson' (1967) was written by Billy Edd Wheeler and which half of a famous songwriting duo?
Jerry Leiber
Jerry Leiber, of Leiber and Stoller, co-wrote 'Jackson' under the pseudonym Gaby Rodgers; Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood had a pop hit with it the same summer of 1967.
Q 19What did June and Johnny's recording of 'Jackson' win at the 1968 Grammys?
Best Country & Western Performance by a Duo or Group
Best Country & Western Performance by a Duo or Group went to 'Jackson' at the 10th Grammy Awards in 1968; the single had peaked at number two on the country chart.
Q 20June and Johnny won a second duet Grammy in 1971 for their version of which Tim Hardin song?
If I Were a Carpenter
If I Were a Carpenter, Tim Hardin's folk ballad that Bobby Darin took into the pop top ten in 1966, gave the Cashes a country top-five hit and their second duet Grammy.
Three solo albums: a 1975 country-folk debut, Press On in 1999, and Wildwood Flower, cut in 2002 and released after her death in 2003.
Q 24What was the title of June's first solo album, released in 1975?
Appalachian Pride
Appalachian Pride, released on Columbia in 1975, was June's first solo album; its follow-up, Press On, did not arrive until 24 years later in 1999.
Q 25June's 1999 record Press On won a Grammy in which category?
Best Traditional Folk Album
Best Traditional Folk Album went to Press On at the 2000 Grammy Awards; the record includes June's own late-life reading of 'Ring of Fire'.
Q 26June won a posthumous Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for which Carter Family standard?
Keep on the Sunny Side
Keep on the Sunny Side, the Carter Family's 1928 theme song, won June the 2004 Grammy for her Wildwood Flower version, awarded the February after her death.
Q 27Who produced June's final album, Wildwood Flower?
Her son John Carter Cash
John was also associate producer on his father's American III and American IV albums.
Q 28One of June's last appearances was a silent role in the video for which 2003 Johnny Cash single?
Hurt
Hurt, Cash's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song produced by Rick Rubin, has a Mark Romanek video in which June watches her husband from the stairs in silence.
Q 29June's first husband, whom she married in 1952, was which country singer?
Carl Smith
Carl Smith, the honky-tonk star of 'Let's Live a Little' and 'Hey Joe!', married June in 1952; they divorced in 1956.
Q 30June's daughter from her first marriage became a country star under what name?
Carlene Carter
Carlene Carter, born Rebecca Carlene Smith in 1955, took her mother's family name and was married to English singer-songwriter Nick Lowe from 1979 to 1990.