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One imagines John Carter Cash reacts differently than anyone else when hearing the folk-music standard, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” His grandmother, great aunt and great uncle popularized the song when the Carter Family recorded it in 1935 under its original title, “Can the Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye).” His mother, June Carter Cash, closed nearly all of her concerts by inviting crowds to sing it along with her, and her somber, deliberate rendition of it on her 1999 album, Press On, is among the most moving versions on record.

Since the song is about someone watching a mother’s funeral procession, it no doubt touches an even deeper part of John Carter Cash, particularly the verse, “I said to the undertaker / Undertaker please drive slow / For this lady you are carrying / Lord, I hate to see her go.”

Carter has spent the last few years trying to slow down the undertaker—and to keep the work and life stories of his parents alive. He’s authorized several CD reissues and DVDs on his father, and served as executive producer for the biopic Walk the Line. There have also been two major June Carter CD compilations in recent years.

Now comes the next step: a tribute CD and biography of his mother, both sharing a title, Anchored in Love. He wrote the book and produced the CD, and both share a careful concern with how his mother is remembered, sticking closely to reflections of those who knew and loved her. “Mom departed this world quite a bit sooner than I expected, but in so many ways she is still with me,” he writes in the biography. “I still sing with her.”

Music was among June Carter’s great loves, but she didn’t share the obsessive ambition that fueled many of those around her. Her music did reflect her personality, though. It was grounded in Christianity, centered on home, family and love, yet sparked with a playful wit and an uninhibited side that made her both boldly outspoken and, at times, willfully outrageous.

The CD focuses more on June’s traditional, reverent side. One exception is a rambunctious “Jackson” by Ronnie Dunn and Carlene Carter, June’s daughter and John Carter’s half-sister. The two initially performed the tune at a memorial concert at the Ryman Auditorium shortly after the Man in Black’s death, and here they both cut loose on what is probably June’s best-known recording. On the not-so-sunny side, California singer-songwriter Grey DeLisle tries to channel June’s quirky, theatrical vocal style on “Big Yellow Peaches,” resulting in the album’s only cringe-inducing misstep.

But for the most part, the CD is a family-and-friends affair, as they celebrate songs June Carter wrote or a few old Carter Family standards she often performed. Rosanne Cash’s “Wings of Angels” and Emmylou Harris’ “Song to John” are beautiful and mournful, as would be expected. Loretta Lynn sings “Wildwood Flower” straightforwardly, her weathered twang giving it all the character it needs—and the song rightly focuses on the vocal treatment and not the famous guitar melody, because this is a tribute to June Carter, not to her mother, Maybelle Carter, and her pioneering guitar style. Similarly, Ralph Stanley’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” is as austere and solid as a church pew.

Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow’s “If I Were a Carpenter” picks up the tempo from Johnny and June’s version, but it’s nonetheless low-key and loving. Similarly, the grainy voice of Kris Kristofferson plays off the mountain edges of Patty Loveless’ fortified soprano on the spiritual love song “The Far Side Banks of Jordan.”

Billy Bob Thornton recognizes June’s narrative musical stories with a theatrical reading of the pioneer story “Road to Kaintuck,” with harmonies by the young Peasall Sisters. Similarly, Billy Joe Shaver can’t help but bring some drama to “Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea,” but not more than the lyrics require. The pioneering Carter guitar sound does get a nod from Brad Paisley, who uses his bluegrass-styled “Keep on the Sunny Side” to show his love and understanding of old-time country tunes.

In one of the most surprising cuts, Elvis Costello returns “Ring of Fire” to its original sound by arranging it around the autoharp, June’s primary instrument. June wrote the song with Merle Kilgore, and the original version was done as “Love’s Ring of Fire” by June’s sister, Anita Carter, and released on the 1963 album Folk Songs Old and New. Although Johnny and June’s marriage was still five years off, June later said the lyrics were inspired by her feelings for Cash, comparing falling into love with him to stepping into a ring of fire. Costello’s take uses the autoharp and a skiffle beat to take the song back to its folk roots while conjuring June’s conflicted desires.

In John Carter Cash’s affectionate biography, June’s conflicts get the kid-glove treatment from her youngest child. Told in a series of vignettes—much like June’s own autobiographical stories in her 1979 book Among My Klendiments—Cash doesn’t attempt a comprehensive biography, but instead uses personal scenes from her life to portray how she used faith, love and generosity to keep “pressing on,” as she often put it, through life’s inherent challenges.

At its best, the book draws on those closest to June for insights and commentary, as when John Carter quotes his mother’s cousin, Ester Moore, who characterizes June as “always happy, always full of herself. It seemed like everyone wanted to be around her.” That’s something a casual observer might say, too, but it rings differently when spoken by someone who knew her since childhood.

Like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, June Carter used her mountain spirit to disarm people and, simultaneously, make them feel special and close, as if she’d known them all her life. As Rosanne Cash says, as quoted in the book, June knew two types of people: “Those she knew and loved, and those she didn’t know and loved. She looked for the best in everyone.”

Like Lynn, June couldn’t hide heartache even though she tried, but she’d rebound quickly through a reservoir of perseverance and strength. The biography shows how she learned to calm the stubborn, sometimes destructive Cash not by moralizing or preaching, but by telling him he was acting like a star or someone who thought he was better than others.

John Carter outlines her story: growing up in rural Appalachia yet traveling the world with an entertainment family; learning to dance and crack jokes because she lacked the vocal talent of her sisters Helen and Anita; her starring role as a Grand Ole Opry comedian; her short-term move into serious acting; and her eventual romance with Cash, as it moves from its tentative beginnings to its all-consuming fate.

The most memorable moments are between John Carter and his parents; his frightening brush with death when a Jeep his aunt was driving flipped over; his father’s return to addiction, this time with pain pills, and more surprisingly, his mother’s fall into a dependence on prescription narcotics; his half-sisters, Rosey Carter and Carlene Carter, and their struggle with addictions and the affect it had on his mother; and his parents slow demise and the weaknesses and strengths it brought out in everyone concerned.

“What a legacy she leaves, what a mother she was,” Rosanne Cash had said of her stepmother during her funeral eulogy. John Carter Cash’s biography seconds that sentiment, warts and all.