Chris Bonds replies to me:

>>Well, for one thing, he's hard.  For another, most Americans don't know
>>who the hell he is, including Americans supposedly interested in the arts.
>>Fortunately, Carter, with family money from children's clothes, doesn't
>>have to care.
>
>I thought he was part of the Carter family that made the "Little Liver
>Pills." The fortune isn't in question.

According to John Clough, University of Michigan, Carter's Childrens
Clothes.  Composer Daniel Pinkham, on the other hand, is related to Lydia
Pinkham, of patent nostrums.

>>That all said, I must admit my reservations about a lot of Carter, chief of
>>which is that he's never vulgar; everything is in great taste.  It bothers
>>me, for example, that Ives inspires him, but the culture that inspired Ives
>>does not.
>
>An interesting observation.  I would counter (as devils advocate) that
>perhaps the culture inspired him in less overt ways than it did Ives.  In
>his own way he pursued the course of individualism as Ives did.  I think
>he's definitely an American composer.

Well, of course he's American.  So is Hanson.  I simply don't hear the
American vernacular in either.  Furthermore, when Carter does tackle an
American subject (like Pocohontas), he comes to it via Copland, rather
than through any interest in the native culture or even myth - the
difference between Longfellow's Hiawatha and Howard Wolf's translations.
Individualism I don't really consider an American aesthetic trait.  I
find plenty of individuals in other countries.

Steve Schwartz