More than any other president of the United States, Jimmy Carter will be remembered for his contributions to the arts. The former president was a three-time Grammy winner and was nominated again in 2025 for the audiobook Last Sundays in Plains: A Centennial Celebration.
Carter passed away at 100 on Sunday, December 29, 2024.
Musicians and the 1976 Presidential Election
Carter was well-known for associating with musicians. The Allman Brothers Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels, and Willie Nelson were among them. Nelson admitted to smoking marijuana with Chip Carter, the former president’s son, on the roof of the White House.
In 1975, the Allman Brothers endorsed Jimmy Carter for president three months before the Iowa caucuses. Carter later said that the band raised $64,000 for the indebted campaign, which helped his presidential race. Because of the fundraising, Carter doubled the amount with matching government funds.
In 2015, Carter said, “Gregg Allman and the Allman Brothers just about put me in the White House.”
Heartfelt Tributes
When Carter’s death was announced, social media was filled with musicians remembering the former president.
Peter Gabriel, a long-time friend of Carter, wrote, “President Jimmy Carter was a truly extraordinary man and a rare politician who always stood up and spoke out for idealism, compassion and human rights and particularly for the rights of women and those who suffered real oppression.”
Country Singer Trisha Yearwood also wrote her condolences, saying, “Rest easy, Mr President. I’m sad for us and happy for you. Your and Mrs. Rosalynn’s legacy of love will live forever.”
Yearwood and her husband, country star Garth Brooks, worked with Habitat for Humanity on the 2024 Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project.
The Academy of Country Music (ACM) quoted Carter in their statement. In 1980, he’d written for the 15th annual ACM awards, “Country music is heard everywhere. It is the deepest expression of all that is uniquely American.” The statement from the ACM ended with, “On behalf of everyone at the Academy, thank you for your service to others and love for [country music].”
Nancy Wilson, the vocalist for the band Heart, called Carter “an incredible bridge between policy and our humanity.”
Actor Jamie Lee Curtis shared a tribute on her Instagram, saying, “Thank you for teaching us all how to be humans Mr. President.”
On X (formerly Twitter), rapper Killer Mike said, “I am honored to say I have known a ‘Good Man’ who made a difference in a wicked world.” Killer Mike was born in Georgia, Carter’s home state.
Carter’s Contributions to the Arts
Stuart E. Eizenstat was Carter’s chief domestic policy adviser from 1977 to 1981. He stated that Carter’s contributions to the arts made him “as close to a Renaissance man as we’ve had in the White House in modern times.”
Carter opened the east wing of the National Gallery of Art at the base of the US Capitol in 1978. IM Pei designed the east wing.
At the opening, Carter said, “We have no ministry of culture in this country, and I hope we never will. We have no official art in this country, and I pray that we never will. No matter how democratic a government may be, no matter how responsive to the wishes of its people, it can never be government’s role to define exactly what is good, or true or beautiful. Instead, government should limit itself to nourishing the ground in which art and the love of art can grow.”
Even though Congress doubled the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) budget during the Carter administration, Carter’s liberal stance on expression also contributed to a backlash from people like Christian evangelical leader Jerry Falwell.
The former president was also a painter. A package of his old art tools and a print he made brought in a million dollars at an auction that benefitted the Carter Center in Atlanta.
