Rosanne Cash

The eldest daughter of Johnny Cash and his first wife Vivian, Rosanne Cash built her own successful career as an eclectic, country-based singer and writer. She was born in Memphis during her father's Sun Records heyday, and raised by her mother in California after they separated. After she graduated high school Johnny took her on his road show, first as a wardrobe assistant and gradually as a performer. She made her recording debut with Johnny in 1971 (on a Kris Kristofferson song, "Broken Freedom Song") and five years later he recorded "Love Has Lost Again," the first of her songs to hit vinyl. After relocating to Los Angeles she met Rodney Crowell, then a member of Emmylou Harris' band who was branching out as a singer/songwriter. Soon becoming a couple, they worked together on Cash's 1978 debut album, released only on a German label and later disowned. However both Cash and Crowell would see commercial and critical success as their collaboration continued in the '80s. Though they never made a duet album, they appeared on each other's releases through the '80s, Cash's first hit was "No Memories Hanging Round," a Crowell song that she sang with Bobby Bare. However her albums would come to be dominated by her own songs. 1987-88 was a banner year for the couple; her King's Record Shop and his Diamonds & Dirt produced ten hit singles between them. Both exemplified a time when Nashville and radio were opening to more progressive forms of country music. The breakdown of the marriage produced her most personal album, 1990's Interiors . Though revered by critics, it also marked her separation from Nashville and the charts; tellingly it received a Grammy nomination as a folk, not country album. The more personal acoustic-based sound would continue with her next two albums, The Wheel and 10 Song Demo, respectively her last for Columbia and first for Capitol. Both marked her new relationship with guitarist John Leventhal, who would remain her musical partner and husband. She would continue to write about personal issues, including family connections. The death of Johnny Cash and stepmother June informed a trilogy of albums about mortality and homecoming : Black Cadillac (2006), The List(2009) and The River & the Thread (2014). The middle album was an all-covers disc, drawing 12 songs from a list of 100 essentials that Johnny gave her as a child. She also began working as a prose writer; during 2007 she underwent brain surgery to repair a structural defect in her cerebellum, and wrote about this in an op-ed for the New York Times. 2018 brought a new album, She Remembers Everything, on which her lyrics take a darker philosophical turn and her co-writers include Kristofferson and Elvis Costello.