He loves Bob Dylan. The Allman Brothers were a key part of his campaign. And Willie Nelson visited him – and smoked pot – at the White House.
Years before Bill Clinton played the saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s show and decades before Obama’s Spotify playlists, Jimmy Carter was America’s first rock ’n’ roll President.
Carter quoted Dylan when running for President, saying America was “busy being born, not busy dying”. Dylan would later call Carter “a kindred spirit to me of a rare kind. The kind of man you don’t meet every day and that you’re lucky to meet if you ever do.”
Jimmy Carter, America’s oldest living President, turns 100 today. He is the longest-lived President in American history.
An extraordinary 2020 documentary, Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President, revealed the depth of the President’s love of music and musicians.
“The film accurately captures my love for all music and the importance music has played in my personal and professional life,” Carter explained. “I remain hopeful and believe that music can serve to bring us together as a nation.”
Written by music journalist and broadcaster Bill Flanagan, the film highlighted Carter’s passion for music, which started with gospel songs at the Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
When asked if his dad played a musical instrument, Chip Carter replied, “He played the stereo. When we had no money at all, he spent $600 on buying the best stereo in Georgia.”
Carter and his sons bonded over their love of Bob Dylan. When Carter invited Dylan to the Governor’s mansion when he was Governor of Georgia, the singer was surprised when Carter quoted his lyrics back to him. “It was the first time I realised my songs had reached into the establishment,” Dylan said.
The Allman Brothers arrived late to the Dylan party and found a shirtless, shoeless man on the porch. Gregg Allman thought, “Who’s this bum at the Governor’s mansion?” It was Carter. They shared a J&B Scotch Whisky, and Carter told the singer: “I’m gonna be our next President.”
“He was cool,” Allman remembered. “He enjoyed our music, and he became a friend.”
Carter credited the Allman Brothers with putting him in the White House—“raising money for me when I didn’t have any”.
The President said he was a bit of a “non-entity” at the time. “But everyone knew the Allman Brothers, and when they endorsed me, all the young people said, ‘If the Allman Brothers like Jimmy Carter, we can vote for him.’”
“I definitely feel in my heart that we helped him become President,” Allman said. “A lot of other people did, too, but we had a hand in it.”
Carter’s main rival during the Democratic primaries was the Governor of California, Jerry Brown, who dated Linda Ronstadt and also had the Eagles in his corner. But they were no match for Carter and his southern rock supporters.
During the campaign, Carter stood by Gregg Allman when he was forced to testify in a cocaine trial. Some advisors were concerned that Carter’s relationships with “disreputable rock ’n’ rollers” would derail his push for President.
“But I didn’t care about that,” Carter said. “The response from the followers of those musicians was much more influential than a few people who thought that being associated with rock ’n’ roll and radical people was inappropriate for a President.”
Allman and his then-girlfriend, Cher, were among the first people Carter invited to the White House for dinner. When Allman died in 2017, Carter released a statement saying, “Gregg Allman was there when I needed him, and Rosalynn and I have always been grateful to him.”
Jimmy Buffett also played at Carter’s rallies. Paul Simon performed at the inauguration concert in 1977, dedicating American Tune to the President, noting that “a time of righteousness and dignity may now be upon us”.
Producer, guitarist and songwriting great Nile Rodgers was another big fan of President Carter, saying, “Just his campaign made me feel like we had a President who saw the world the way we saw it.”
As President, Carter maintained his friendships with the rock stars. Crosby, Stills & Nash visited him at the Oval Office in 1977, and he hosted more concerts at the White House than any other President. He even joined jazz great Dizzy Gillespie on stage for a strange spoken word piece called Salt Peanuts.
Carter loved gospel, jazz, pop, rock, classical and country. He and Johnny Cash’s wife, June Carter Cash, claimed they were distant cousins, and the President organised for The Man In Black to meet the Chinese ambassador.
“Country music has become a national treasure and indeed a worldwide source of entertainment and enjoyment that transcends language and national borders,” Carter said. Noting his surprise success, the President added, “It’s always good to see something come out of the south and have an unexpected achievement.”
Carter has been close friends with Willie Nelson for 50 years. In his autobiography, Willie revealed he smoked pot at the White House (neglecting to mention that his fellow inhaler was one of Carter’s sons, Chip).
Willie visited Carter at the White House just after the singer had been busted in the Bahamas, caught with weed in his jeans. “I think it just showed you how open-minded he is and how understanding he is,” Willie told CNN in 2020.
Carter would later joke to Rolling Stone: “All the good things I did as President, all the mistakes I made, you can blame half of that on Willie.”
Willie Nelson sang Georgia On My Mind when Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, calling it “one of the greatest moments in my life”.
Carter also loved southern rock bands, particularly The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band, and the Charlie Daniels Band. Daniels was a Republican, but in 2014, he said, “Jimmy Carter was a good man. He brought some credibility back to the office of the presidency.”
Carter restored honesty and integrity to American politics after the bruising Nixon years, but his reign was marred by the Iran hostage crisis. In 1980, he lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan. During the crisis, Carter drew comfort from Willie Nelson’s version of Amazing Grace.
“I always felt he got the shortest end of the stick of any President I could think of,” Nile Rodgers reflects. “I have no way of knowing this, but I bet you that after the history books have been written, people are going to see him in a very different light.”
Bono praised President Carter at the We Are Family Foundation’s awards in 2016. “He quoted Bob Dylan,” the U2 singer said. “He campaigned with the Allman Brothers … you get the feeling if his hair was a little longer, he’d be in the Allman Brothers.
“This was the first world leader I ever heard who knew the words to all the songs that were my generation’s telegraph.”
President Carter is the only US president to have made it to 100.
Two weeks before his birthday, a concert was held in Atlanta, Georgia – Jimmy Carter 100: A Celebration in Song. Artists such as The B-52s, Drive-By Truckers, Carlene Carter, Eric Church, India Arie and Angélique Kidjo gathered to celebrate a remarkable life.
Every living President – apart from Trump – sent their best wishes.
“He really was the rock ’n’ roll President,” said Chuck Leavell, who was a member of the Allman Brothers during Carter’s campaign.
President Obama spoke of Carter’s “fundamental decency and great taste in music”, noting that “nothing brings us together like the power of a great song”.
Appropriately, President Carter is the most honoured politician in Grammy history. He has three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album, for audio recordings of his books.
Willie Nelson called Carter “his favourite President … he did a good job.
“With all the odds against him, he still did what he thought was right, and that’s not a bad pattern for all of us to follow.”
The world’s biggest-selling country artist, Garth Brooks, had the final word in Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President.
“His love for music makes all kinds of sense to me because music is the voice of the heart; music is the voice of the soul. And when you talk about heart and soul, I think he’s the President in my mind, of my living time, that I can think of that brought it to the office.”
The photo above is in the public domain (credit: Piotrus) in the US, but it is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence in Australia. The image has been cropped for use.
