Rosanne Cash on Rare Performance, Father’s Memories and Next Steps
When Rosanne Cash was given the opportunity to present three unique performance experiences as the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s latest artist-in-residence, she knew she had to make them count. Earlier this month, the former Nashvillian who now lives in New York began with a show that spotlighted her multiple-Grammy-winning LP, The River and the Thread, a brilliant travelogue that explores her Southern roots, both musically and personally. Special guests that night, during which the entire album was performed in sequence, included Tony Joe White, Cory Chisel and Lucinda Williams.
Williams also returned to join Cash again the following night, along with Country Music Hall of Fame member Emmylou Harris, giving the three hugely influential singer-songwriters a chance to do something they hadn’t before – and may not ever do again. For two hours, the longtime friends traded songs and swapped stories with one another to the delight of a rapt crowd at the museum’s CMA Theater.
Cash’s artist-in-residence appearance coincides with the extraordinary exhibit, “Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City,” which for the daughter of Johnny Cash is like stepping inside a larger-than-life-sized family scrapbook, with the monumental influence her ancestors have had on music and popular culture on full display. The exhibit is, according to Cash, a template of herself as both a songwriter and a person in many ways.
This week’s performance caps a month in which Cash was also seen onscreen in the CMT documentary, Johnny Cash: American Rebel. A penetrating look at the life and career of the iconic entertainer, the film aired on September 12th, the 12th anniversary of the day Cash died at 71 years old. While Rosanne is often asked to participate in TV specials and other projects reflecting on her father’s legacy, she is, by her own admission, “very, very selective.” The only things she has said yes to in the last few years have been the restoration project of Cash’s boyhood home in Arkansas and the CMT film.
“That’s very close to my heart,” Cash tells Rolling Stone Country of the five-room house in Dyess, Arkansas, that is now open to the public. “And I did an interview in the CMT movie, only because I know the CMT people, I knew it was a good team and my brother asked me to. The preservation of his legacy, it’s done. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s not going to go away.”
The exhibit, which has also been memorialized in a beautifully rendered book which features an essay by Rosanne, has also given her a sense of well-being, knowing the artifacts are in safe keeping at the massive downtown museum, which has recently been expanded and enhanced to allow more items to be on display.