Rosanne Cash | |
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.jpg) Cash in 2012 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1955-05-24)May 24, 1955 (age 70) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1978–present |
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| Website | rosannecash |
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Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter ofcountry musicianJohnny Cash and his first wife,Vivian Cash.[1]
Although Cash is often classified as a country artist, her music draws from many genres, includingfolk,pop,rock,blues, and in particular,Americana. In the 1980s, she had a string of genre-crossing singles that entered both the country and pop charts, the most commercially successful being her 1981 breakthrough hit "Seven Year Ache". It topped the U.S. country singles chart, and reached the Top 30 on the U.S. pop chart.
In 1990, Cash releasedInteriors, a spare, introspective album that signaled a break from her pop-country past.[2] The following year she ended her marriage to songwriterRodney Crowell.
She moved fromNashville to New York City. She has continued to write, record, and perform, having since released six albums, written three books, and edited a collection of short stories. Her fiction and essays have been published inThe New York Times,Rolling Stone, theOxford American,New York Magazine, and other periodicals and collections.
Cash won aGrammy Award in 1985 for "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me" and has received 12 other Grammy nominations.[3] She has had 11 No. 1 country hit singles, 21 Top 40 country singles, and twogold records. Cash was the 2014 recipient ofSmithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award, in the Performing Arts category.
On February 8, 2015, Cash won three Grammy awards: for Best Americana Album forThe River & the Thread; Best American Roots Song, with John Leventhal; and Best American Roots Performance for her albumA Feather's Not A Bird.[4] Cash was honored further in October that year, when she was inducted into theNashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.[5]
Cash was born in 1955 inMemphis, Tennessee, to Vivian and Johnny Cash, when Johnny was recording his first tracks atSun Records. She is the first of four daughters.[6][7] Her mother wasVivian Cash (née Liberto), known to be of maternal Irish, German, and African-American ancestry, and paternalSicilian. She grew up Catholic and her paternal Liberto grandparents were immigrants fromCefalù,Palermo.[8][9]
The Cash couple married inSan Antonio, Texas, where Vivian was born and raised. They later lived inMemphis, Tennessee. Vivian attracted attention as Johnny Cash became a star because some observers believed her appearance reflected African-American ancestry, and interracial marriage was illegal in the South. She grew up in Sicilian-American culture in San Antonio, went to white schools in the segregated state, and was registered as white on her marriage license, among other documentation of her family's racial status as white.
With Johnny Cash's increasing success in country music, in 1958 he moved the family from Memphis to California, first to Los Angeles. He later bought a farm inVentura. Her parents separated in 1962, and divorced six years later. Cash and her sisters were raised by their mother Vivian in the isolated, rural location.[10]
After graduating fromSt. Bonaventure High School about 1973,[11] Rosanne Cash joined her father's road show for two and a half years. She first worked as a wardrobe assistant,[12] then as a background vocalist and occasional soloist.[13] Rosanne Cash made her studio recording debut on Johnny Cash's 1974 albumTheJunkie and the Juicehead Minus Me, singing lead vocal on a version ofKris Kristofferson's "Broken Freedom Song".
In 1976, Johnny Cash recorded Rosanne's song "Love Has Lost Again"[14] on his albumOne Piece At A Time. This was Rosanne Cash's first professionally recorded work as a songwriter.
That same year, she briefly worked forCBS Records in London before returning toNashville to study English and drama atVanderbilt University.[6] She relocated to Los Angeles to study at theLee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Hollywood.[15] She recorded a demo in January 1978 withEmmylou Harris's songwriter/sidemanRodney Crowell, which led to a full album with German labelAriola Records.[15]
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Cash recorded her self-titled debut album in 1978, but Ariola never released it in the United States. It has since become a collector's item. Mainly recorded and produced inMunich, Germany, with German-based musicians, it included three tracks recorded in Nashville and produced by Crowell.[16] Though Cash was unhappy with the album, it attracted the attention ofColumbia Records, which offered her a recording contract.
She began playing with Crowell's bandThe Cherry Bombs in California clubs. Crowell and Cash married in 1979.[12]
That year Cash started work on her first Columbia LP. The album,Right or Wrong, was released in early 1980,[17] and produced three Top 25 singles.[16] The first, "No Memories Hangin' Around", a duet with country singerBobby Bare, reached 17 on the Country Singles chart in 1979. It was followed by "Couldn't Do Nothing Right" and "Take Me, Take Me" in 1980.[18] Although Cash was pregnant with her first child and unable to tour in support of the album, it was a critical success.[17] Cash and Crowell moved toNashville in 1981.
Cash's career picked up considerable momentum with the release of her second album,Seven Year Ache, in 1981. The album achieved critical raves and solid sales. Thetitle track was a No. 1 hit on theBillboard Country Chart and crossed over to theBillboard Pop Chart, peaking at No. 22. The album yielded two additional No. 1 country hits, "My Baby Thinks He's a Train" and "Blue Moon with Heartache",[17] and was certified Gold by theRIAA.
Cash's third album,Somewhere in the Stars (1982), was considered a disappointment after the commercial success ofSeven Year Ache.[15] But the album still reached the Top 100 of the U.S. pop album charts and included three U.S. country chart singles, "Ain't No Money", "I Wonder", and "It Hasn't Happened Yet".[19] Cash struggled withsubstance abuse during this period of time; in 1984 she sought medical treatment.[17]
After a three-year hiatus, Cash released her fourth studio album,Rhythm & Romance (1985). It yielded two No. 1 hits, "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me" and "Never Be You", and two other Country Top 10 singles, "Hold On" and "Second to No One".Rhythm & Romance drew high critical praise for its fusion of country and pop.[13] "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me" won the 1985Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance; "Hold On" won the 1987 Robert J. Burton Award fromBMI as the Most Performed Song of the Year.[15]
In the 1980s, Cash curtailed her touring while raising a family with Crowell. (They had three daughters together, and she also reared Hannah, Crowell's daughter by his first marriage).
She continued to record and in 1987 released the most critically acclaimed album of her career,King's Record Shop.[20] It spawned four No. 1 hits, including a cover version of her father's "Tennessee Flat Top Box", John Hiatt's "The Way We Make a Broken Heart", "If You Change Your Mind", and John Stewart's "Runaway Train". It became Cash's second gold album.[15]
In 1988 Cash recorded a duet with Crowell, "It's Such a Small World" (released on hisDiamonds & Dirt album), which also went to No. 1 on the country charts. Cash was namedBillboard's Top Singles Artist of the year.[15]
In 1989, Columbia released her first compilation album,Hits 1979–1989. The album yielded two new hit singles, theBeatles cover "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", which landed at No. 1 on theBillboard country charts, and "Black and White", which earned Cash her fifth Grammy nomination.[16]
In 1990, Cash released the critically acclaimed, deeply personalInteriors. Cash produced herself for the first time and wrote or co-wrote all the songs. "Her brutally dark take on intimate relationships was reflected throughout and made clear the marital problems that had been hinted at on earlier albums."[12] "Highly autobiographical (though Cash has often insisted it is not quite as true to life as everyone assumes), Interiors was a brilliant, introspective album"[21] and "her masterpiece".[22] Other critics called it "maudlin"[15] and "pessimistic".[19]Interiors topped many best album lists in 1990[21] and received a Grammy award nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album. It yielded one Top 40 single ("What We Really Want") and marked the beginning of sharp commercial decline for Cash.
Though it may have been inspired by the breakup of her marriage, it also signified her departure from Nashville and its country music establishment.[6] In 1991 Cash relocated to New York City; in 1992, she and Crowell divorced.[16]The Wheel, released in 1993, was "an unflinchingly confessional examination of the marriage's failure that ranked as her most musically diverse effort to date".[13] The album was Cash's last for Columbia Records. It received considerable acclaim from critics, though neither of its two singles, "The Wheel" or "You Won't Let Me In", charted.
Cash settled in lowerManhattan and in 1995 married producer/songwriter/guitaristJohn Leventhal, with whom she had co-producedThe Wheel. She signed withCapitol Records and in 1996 released10 Song Demo, a collection of stark home recordings with minimal accompaniment.
She also pursued a career as a writer and in 1996Hyperion published the short story collectionBodies of Water to favorable reviews.[12] In 1997, Cash was awarded an honorary doctorate fromMemphis College of Art. She gave the commencement address that year.[23] She has continued to speak publicly on writing and music.
In 1998, she and Leventhal began working on what would later becomeRules of Travel. The recording sessions were cut short when she became pregnant. What was more difficult was that she was unable to sing for two and a half years, due to apolyp on her vocal cords.[19]
Cash turned to focus on her writing. She published a children's book,Penelope Jane: A Fairy's Tale (2000), which included an exclusive CD and was published byHarperCollins. The following year she edited a collection of short fiction by songwriters titledSongs Without Rhyme: Prose by Celebrated Songwriters (2001).[12]
Recovering her voice, she resumed recording and in 2003 releasedRules of Travel, her first full-fledged studio album forCapitol. The album had guest appearances bySheryl Crow andSteve Earle, a song co-written byJoe Henry andJakob Dylan, and the poignant "September When It Comes," a duet with her father Johnny Cash.[16]Rules of Travel was nominated for a 2003 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.[24]
Cash was also an inaugural member of theIndependent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists.[25]
In 2005,Legacy Recordings reissued herSeven Year Ache (1981),King's Record Shop (1987), andInteriors (1990). It also released a new collection spanning 1979–2003,The Very Best of Rosanne Cash.
In 2006, Cash releasedBlack Cadillac, an album marking the losses of both her stepmotherJune, and father Johnny, who both died in 2003. Her mother,Vivian Cash Distin, died in 2005 as Rosanne finished the album.[26] The album was critically praised, and named to the Top 10 lists ofThe New York Times,[27]Billboard,[28] PopMatters,[29] NPR[30] and other general interest and music publications. The album was nominated for a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.[31]
Cash toured extensively in support of the album. She created amultimedia performance, with video, imagery and narration drawn from the songs and from her family history.[32] In 2006, a short documentary by filmmaker Steve Lippman, "Mariners and Musicians", based on the album and interviews with Cash, premiered at theTribeca Film Festival and was screened at festivals worldwide.[33]
Cash's music was also featured prominently in anAmerican Masters biography of photographerAnnie Leibovitz. She had photographed Cash and her family numerous times.[34]
In late 2007, Cash underwentbrain surgery for a rare condition (Chiari I malformation) and was forced to cancel her remaining concert dates.[35] After a successful recovery,[36] she resumed writing and live appearances. In 2008 she wrote forMeasure for Measure, the songwriters' column inThe New York Times;[37] recorded withKris Kristofferson andElvis Costello,[38] and appeared on Costello's TV seriesSpectacle.[39]
Cash released her next studio album, entitledThe List, on October 6, 2009. The album is based on a list of 100 greatest country and American songs that Johnny Cash gave her when she was 18.[40] Cash picked 12 songs out of the 100 for the album. The album features vocal duets withBruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello,Jeff Tweedy, andRufus Wainwright. AniTunes Store-only 13th song features a duet withNeko Case. On September 9, 2010, the Americana Music Association namedThe List the Album of the Year.[41]
In addition to her own recordings, Cash has made guest appearances on albums byJeff Bridges,Rodney Crowell,Guy Clark,Vince Gill,Lyle Lovett,Mary Chapin Carpenter,Marc Cohn,The Chieftains,John Stewart,Willy Mason,Mike Doughty,Black 47 and others, as well as children's albums byLarry Kirwan,Tom Chapin, andDan Zanes and Friends. She has also appeared on tribute albums toThe Band,Johnny Cash,Bob Dylan,Woody Guthrie,Jimi Hendrix,John Hiatt,Kris Kristofferson,Laura Nyro,Yoko Ono,Doc Pomus, andTammy Wynette.
Cash wroteComposed: A Memoir (2010), "a pointillistic memoir about growing up with and without her father, and about how she slid out from under his shadow to become a gifted artist in her own right." It became aNew York Times Bestseller.[42]
In November 2011, Cash performed with the Minnesota Orchestra. In preparation for the event, she worked with composerStephen Barber to orchestrate nine of her songs.[43]
The tourism organization Brand USA enlisted Cash to develop a song to promote foreign tourism to the United States. In April 2012, she released the song "Land of Dreams"; it was used by Brand USA in video advertisements and online as part of a global tourism campaign.[44][45]
On February 6, 2012, Cash received the AFTRA Media and Entertainment Excellence Award in Sound Recordings.[46]
Cash sang the part of Monique on the 2013 albumGhost Brothers of Darkland County, a collaboration between rock singerJohn Mellencamp and novelistStephen King.[47][48]
Cash gave the closing speech at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters' conference, APAP|NYC, in January 2013.[49]
Cash signed with Blue Note Records in 2013 to release a new original album.The River & the Thread was released on January 14, 2014. It was Cash's first album in more than four years.[50]
The River & the Thread is a collection of songs written with husband and collaborator John Leventhal, inspired by trips through the American South. Cash describesThe River & The Thread as "a mini-travelogue of the South, and of the soul." The journey included visits to father Johnny Cash's childhood home inDyess, Arkansas; her own early childhood home in Memphis, Tennessee; William Faulkner's house;Dockery Plantation in Cleveland, Mississippi; the plantation where Howlin' Wolf and Charley Patton worked and sang;Natchez, Mississippi; the blues trail; and theTallahatchie Bridge. They visited Natalie Chanin, a master seamstress in Florence, Alabama.[51]
Throughout 2014, Cash toured extensively with partner John Leventhal, performingThe River & The Thread together with first-person stories woven through historical time, to much critical acclaim.[52]The River & The Thread was the Number One album of 2014 on Americana radio, and was honored byUSA Today,The New York Times,The Village Voice,Rolling Stone,The Huffington Post, NPR Fresh Air,Uncut (magazine), No Depression,The Sun (UK), andAmerican Songwriter as one of the top albums of 2014.[52]
On February 8, 2015, Cash won three Grammy awards for Best Americana Album forThe River & The Thread, and Best American Roots Song with John Leventhal and Best American Roots Performance for "A Feather's Not A Bird".[4]
In 2015, Cash was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame,[5] honored as Artist-in-Residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum,[53] and selected as Carnegie Hall's 2015-2016 Perspective Series Artist.[54]
In 2018, Cash signed withICM Partners and released a new album entitledShe Remembers Everything.[55]
On February 29, 2020, Cash, with her band, performed at the historicUniversal Preservation Hall inSaratoga Springs, New York. It had been restored and upgraded to a state-of-the-art performing arts venue.[56]
Cash has three younger sisters: Kathy, Cindy, and Tara.[6] Her parents divorced in 1966.
Her father marriedJune Carter in 1968, who had two daughters. The couple had a son together,John Carter Cash, Rosanne's half-brother.
Cash's stepsisters both became country singers:
Cash's stepmother and father died in 2003, and her mother in 2005.
Cash married country music singer-songwriterRodney Crowell in 1979. They have three daughters: Caitlin Rivers, Chelsea Jane, and Carrie Kathleen. Cash also raised Crowell's daughter from a previous marriage, Hannah. Cash and Crowell divorced in 1992.[57]
She married her second husband,John Leventhal, in 1995, and they have one son, Jakob. Cash lives with her husband and son inChelsea, Manhattan.[58]
In February 2021, Cash appeared as a guest onFinding Your Roots, the PBS TV series hosted by historianHenry Louis Gates Jr. Among what was learned about her ancestors, genealogists discovered that one of Cash's 16 maternal great-great-great-grandmothers, Sarah A. Shields, was amixed-race woman born into slavery inSouth Carolina, who later lived with her parents and siblings in Alabama. The researchers were unable to learn the name of her enslaved African-American mother. Sarah and her eight mixed-race siblings were all freed in 1848 by their white father, Irish-American planter William Shields, who gained the required act of the Alabama state legislature to achieve this. Sarah, her siblings and their descendants all married white as did their descendants. Many of the extended family moved to Texas, to Mexico during the Civil War, and then back to Texas.[8] In 1870 in Texas, Lafayette Robinson, one of Cash's direct maternal ancestors, was classified as 'mulatto' on the census. With continued intermarriage with whites, descendants were accepted as white. They were classified as white in Texas in death certificates of the 1930s and the1930 census.[8] Along with studying documents, other researchers analyzed Cash's DNA. They found she had 3.3% sub-Saharan African markers, and African ancestry on her father's side, as well as on her mother's. This was likely from the same period of slave society in the South. Gates found that Cash and actressAngela Bassett are distant relatives through shared DNA from a common African-American ancestor.[8] She later joined theDaughters of the American Revolution.[59]
On November 27, 2007, Cash was admitted to New York's Presbyterian Hospital for brain surgery. In a press statement, she announced that she suffered fromChiari malformation type I and expected to "make a full recovery".[60] The surgery was successful,[36] though recovery was slow, and in March 2008 she was forced to cancel her spring tour dates for further recuperation. She wrote about the experience in herNew York Times article "Well, Actually, ItIs Brain Surgery".[61] She resumed writing, recording and performing in late summer of 2008.
Cash supports several charitable organizations. She is a longtime board member of The Center To Prevent Youth Violence (CPYV), formally known as PAX,[62] an organization dedicated to preventing gun violence among children. She was honored by PAX at their fifth annual benefit gala in 2005.[63]
Cash is a frequent guest teacher at the English and Songwriting programs of various colleges and universities includingLeMoyne,[64]Fairleigh-Dickinson[65] andNYU.[66]
Cash has been associated withChildren, Incorporated for more than 25 years and has sponsored many children through the organization, which works to support and educate needy children and young adults worldwide.[67]
Cash was elected to theCentury Association in 2009[68]
She also works withArkansas State University on the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home project, which has restored her father's childhood home inDyess, Arkansas.[69] The Cash family has supported the restoration by raising money through annual music festivals. Rosanne hosted the first and second annual Johnny Cash Music Festivals in 2011 and 2012.[70] She resumed rotating host duties with her half-brother John Carter when the festival resumed at Dyess in 2017.
In 2014 Cash contributed essays to theOxford-American[71] and the book of collected essays edited by Sari BottonNever Can Say Goodbye: Writers On Their Unshakable Love For New York.[72] She was also featured in Gael Towey'sPortraits in Creativity as a featured artist for her Profile Series.[citation needed]
Cash is a dedicated supporter of artists' rights in the digital age and sits on the board of the Content Creators Coalition. On June 25, 2014, Cash testified before The House of Representatives,Judiciary Committee on intellectual property rights and Internet music licensing.[73]
In 2018, Cash was a recipient of an honorary doctorate degree from Berklee College of Music.
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Cash's work has also appeared inThe New York Times,The Oxford American,New York Magazine,Newsweek,Rolling Stone, andMartha Stewart Living.[74]
Academy of Country Music Awards
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Single of the Year | "Seven Year Ache" | Nominated |
| Album of the Year | Seven Year Ache | Nominated | |
| 1982 | Top Female Vocalist | Herself | Nominated |
| 1985 | Nominated | ||
| 1987 | Nominated | ||
| 1988 | Nominated | ||
| Top Vocal Duet | Rosanne Cash andRodney Crowell | Nominated |
Americana Music Honors & Awards
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Artist of the Year | Herself | Nominated |
| Song of the Year | "Black Cadillac" | Nominated | |
| 2010 | Album of the Year | The List | Won |
| 2014 | The River and the Thread | Nominated | |
| Artist of the Year | Herself | Nominated | |
| Song of the Year | "A Feather's Not A Bird" | Nominated | |
| 2018 | Spirit of Americana/Free Speech Award | Herself | Won |
| 2019 | Song of the Year | "By Degrees" | Nominated |
Country Music Association Awards
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Horizon Award | Herself | Nominated |
| 1982 | Nominated | ||
| Female Vocalist of the Year | Nominated | ||
| 1985 | Nominated | ||
| 1986 | Nominated | ||
| 1987 | Nominated | ||
| 1988 | Nominated | ||
| Vocal Event of the Year | "It's Such a Small World" | Nominated | |
| Single of the Year | "Tennessee Flat Top Box" | Nominated | |
| 1989 | Female Vocalist of the Year | Herself | Nominated |
| Vocal Event of the Year | "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" | Nominated |
Grammy Awards
To date, Cash has been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards across four genre categories: Country, Folk, Pop and American Roots.
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Best Female Country Vocal Performance | "Seven Year Ache" | Nominated |
| 1982 | "Ain't No Money" | Nominated | |
| 1985 | "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me" | Won | |
| Best Country Song | Nominated | ||
| 1987 | Best Female Country Vocal Performance | "King's Record Shop" | Nominated |
| 1988 | Best Country Collaboration with Vocals | "It's Such a Small World"(withRodney Crowell) | Nominated |
| 1989 | Best Female Country Vocal Performance | "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" | Nominated |
| 1991 | Best Contemporary Folk Album | Interiors | Nominated |
| 2003 | Rules of Travel | Nominated | |
| 2006 | Black Cadillac | Nominated | |
| 2009 | Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals | "Sea of Heartbreak"(withBruce Springsteen) | Nominated |
| 2010 | Best Americana Album | The List | Nominated |
| 2014 | The River and the Thread | Won | |
| Best American Roots Performance | "A Feather's Not A Bird" | Won | |
| Best American Roots Song | Won | ||
| 2020 | "Crossing to Jerusalem" | Nominated |
Other honors
In 2021, Cash was awarded TheEdward MacDowell Medal byThe MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture.[75]
On May 7, 2022, Cash was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in Humane Letters byArkansas State University. She was the keynote speaker during commencement.[76]
