Back to Her Royal Roots : After years of straying, Carlene Carter finds the music she was born to suits her best

All through her life, Carlene Carter’s been told she really should be a country singer--it’s in her blood.

Carter is a member of country music’s royal family. Maybelle Carter, one of the progenitors of modern country, was her grandmother. Carl Smith, a singer with almost 30 Top 10 country hits in the 1950s, is her father. June Carter Cash is her mother. Johnny Cash is her stepfather. Rosanne Cash is her stepsister.

But, in her youth, Carlene Carter rebelled.

“Musically, I always wanted to experiment,” the energetic Nashville native said recently, sitting in an office at Warner Bros. Records’ Burbank headquarters.

On five albums recorded between 1977 and 1983 she did just that, playing around with various new wave, pop and rock styles while working with mostly English rockers like Nick Lowe (her then-husband) and Graham Parker’s band, the Rumour. She didn’t ignore her roots--the best of those albums, the 1980 Lowe-produced “Musical Shapes,” featured Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and the Carter Family’s “Foggy Mountain Top,” but in a rock context.

Now, at 34, Carter wonders if those who told her to sing country were right.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I wish I’d listened to them. I might have cut the chase more.”

The chase has been cut now, and Carter has reclaimed her heritage. Her new single and album, both titled “I Fell in Love,” are two of the hottest things in country music. Produced by Howie Epstein (bass player for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers), the album is a crisp and vibrant collection of country-oriented songs that refer directly to Carter’s roots without holding back her spunky playfulness.

The turning point came four years ago, when Carter signed on with her mother and aunts in the Carter Family for two years of touring and came to realize that her experiments could fit with her background just fine.

“I took all these things and combined them with this person inside my skin that just has to yodel,” she said.

Carter also credits longtime friend Epstein with helping her get in touch with her roots. That’s most obvious on the tender “Me and the Wildwood Rose.”

“I did that as a suggestion from Howie that I should write about being a kid,” she said. “I let the music come out like a Carter Family song. That came from deep inside, but it was like it came from somewhere else.”

And now that she’s getting a second chance at a recording career, Carter has found that the lessons learned from her family are not just musical.

“One good thing is I was instilled with really good values,” she said. “My mom treats everyone the same. You could be the President or a waitress at a truck stop. . . . My mom always said, ‘You work as hard as you can and don’t get caught up in the stardom thing. Don’t get that big head, ‘cause God’ll split your pants on stage.’ ”