Jimmy Carter was a good friend of Willie Nelson. I remember watching an interview once in which he suggested Nelson smoked weed on the roof of the White House. But Carter liked all kinds of music and invited musicians of all stripes to visit, shake hands, receive medals, and perform.
One of these was Leontyne Price, who made several noteworthy appearances at the White House and Camp David. Price, who had received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and opened the Metropolitan Opera House at its current location at New York City’s Lincoln Center in 1966 (with Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra”), was enlisted to perform, on March 26, 1979, at the banquet that celebrated the Camp David Accords, before President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel. On October 6, 1979, she was asked to welcome Pope John Paul II on his first papal visit to the White House, singing to an audience of 6,000 on the South Lawn that included the Pope, the president, the nine justices of the Supreme Court, the assembled House and Senate, state governors, and others. “She’s by far the most accomplished singer we ever had,” Carter noted in his diary.
While a great fan of country music, jazz, blues, folk, sacred music, and rock (among others), he understood the broader cultural significance and civilizing influence of classical music. He and Rosalynn both received a sound music education in high school and were instilled with a working knowledge of the classics, the way it used to be. In turn, their daughter Amy was given violin lessons, often with Rosalynn at the piano. During the Carter presidency, classical music played in the Oval Office for eight to ten hours a day.
You can learn more about the President’s varied musical tastes and his interactions with famous musicians here:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/music-at-jimmy-carters-white-house
PHOTO: The Carters and Price at the White House in 1978
