Rosanne Cash facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Rosanne Cash
Cash in 2012
Background information
Born	(1955-05-24) May 24, 1955 (age 70) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Genres	Country Americana country pop country folk
Occupation(s)	Singer songwriter author
Instruments	Vocals guitar
Years active	1978–present
Labels	Ariola Columbia Capitol Manhattan Blue Note House of Cash
Signature

Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is a famous American singer, songwriter, and author. She is the oldest daughter of the legendary country musician Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Cash.

While many people call Rosanne a country artist, her music mixes many styles. These include folk, pop, rock, blues, and Americana. In the 1980s, she had many hit songs that appeared on both country and pop music charts. Her biggest hit was "Seven Year Ache" in 1981. It reached number one on the U.S. country chart and made it into the Top 30 on the U.S. pop chart.

In 1990, Cash released Interiors. This album was very personal and different from her earlier pop-country sound. The next year, she and her husband, songwriter Rodney Crowell, divorced.

She then moved from Nashville to New York City. Rosanne has continued to write songs, record albums, and perform live. She has released six more albums, written three books, and edited a collection of short stories. Her stories and essays have been published in well-known magazines like The New York Times and Rolling Stone.

Cash won a Grammy Award in 1985 for her song "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me". She has been nominated for 12 other Grammy Awards. She has had 11 songs reach number one on the country charts. She also has 21 songs in the Top 40 and two "gold records" for selling many copies. In 2014, Smithsonian magazine gave her an American Ingenuity Award for her performing arts work.

On February 8, 2015, Cash won three more Grammy Awards. She won for Best Americana Album for The River & the Thread. She also won Best American Roots Song and Best American Roots Performance for her album A Feather's Not A Bird. Later that year, in October, she was welcomed into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Early Life and Family History

Cash was born in 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father, Johnny Cash, was just starting to record music at Sun Records then. Rosanne's mother, Vivian Cash (born Liberto), had a diverse family background. Her family included Irish, African American, German, and Sicilian roots. Her Italian grandparents came from Cefalù, Palermo.

Researchers from the TV show Finding Your Roots found out something amazing about Rosanne's family. One of her great-great-great-grandmothers, Sarah A. Shields, was a mixed-race woman born into slavery. She and her eight brothers and sisters were freed by their white father. The show also revealed that Rosanne Cash and actress Angela Bassett are distant relatives! They share DNA from a common African American ancestor.

Her family moved to California in 1958. They lived in Los Angeles and then Ventura. Rosanne and her sisters grew up there with their mother. Her parents divorced in 1966. After high school, Rosanne joined her father's music tour for two and a half years. She started by helping with costumes and then became a background singer. She even sang solo sometimes. Her first studio recording was on Johnny Cash's 1974 album, The Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me. She sang the main part on "Broken Freedom Song."

In 1976, Johnny Cash recorded a song Rosanne wrote called "Love Has Lost Again." It was on his album One Piece At A Time. This was Rosanne's first song to be professionally recorded by another artist. That same year, she worked briefly for CBS Records in London. She then returned to Nashville to study English and drama at Vanderbilt University. Later, she moved to Los Angeles to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. In 1978, she recorded a demo with Rodney Crowell, who was a songwriter and musician for Emmylou Harris. This led to her first album with a German record label called Ariola Records.

Music Career Highlights

Rosanne Cash performing at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in 2011.

Early Albums and Success

Rosanne's first album, Rosanne Cash, was recorded in 1978. But Ariola Records never released it in the United States. It's now a rare item for collectors. Most of it was recorded in Germany with German musicians. It also had three songs recorded in Nashville by Rodney Crowell. Even though Rosanne wasn't happy with the album, Columbia Records noticed her and offered her a contract. She started performing in California clubs with Crowell's band, The Cherry Bombs. Cash and Crowell married in 1979, and Rosanne began working on her first album for Columbia.

Her album, Right or Wrong, came out in early 1980. It had three songs that made it into the Top 25. The first, "No Memories Hangin' Around," was a duet with Bobby Bare. It reached number 17 on the Country Singles chart in 1979. Then came "Couldn't Do Nothing Right" and "Take Me, Take Me" in 1980. Rosanne was pregnant with her first child, so she couldn't tour to support the album. Still, critics loved it. Cash and Crowell moved to Nashville in 1981.

Big Hits and Awards

Rosanne's career really took off with her second album, Seven Year Ache, in 1981. Critics praised the album, and it sold very well. The title song was a number one hit on the Billboard Country Chart. It also crossed over to the Billboard Pop Chart, reaching number 22. The album had two more number one country hits: "My Baby Thinks He's a Train" and "Blue Moon with Heartache". It was certified Gold, meaning it sold over 500,000 copies.

After a three-year break, Cash released her fourth album, Rhythm & Romance (1985). This album had two number one hits: "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me" and "Never Be You". It also had two other songs in the Country Top 10. Critics highly praised Rhythm & Romance for mixing country and pop music. "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me" won a Grammy award in 1985 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

In the 1980s, Rosanne toured less because she was raising her family. She had three daughters with Crowell and also helped raise his daughter from a previous marriage. She kept recording music. In 1987, she released King's Record Shop, which many critics called her best album. It had four number one hits, including a cover of her father's song "Tennessee Flat Top Box". This album also became her second gold album. In 1988, Cash sang a duet with Crowell called "It's Such a Small World". This song also went to number one on the country charts. Billboard magazine named Cash the Top Singles Artist of the year.

In 1989, Columbia Records released her first collection of hits, Hits 1979–1989. This album included two new hit songs. One was a Beatles cover, "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", which reached number one on the Billboard country charts. The other was "Black and White," which earned Cash her fifth Grammy nomination.

New Beginnings in New York

In 1990, Cash released Interiors. This album was very personal and she produced it herself. She wrote or co-wrote all the songs. Critics called it "brilliant" and "introspective." Interiors was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

This album also marked her move away from Nashville and its country music scene. In 1991, Cash moved to New York City. In 1992, she and Crowell divorced. The Wheel, released in 1993, was her last album for Columbia Records. It was a very honest look at the end of her marriage. Critics loved the album, but its songs didn't become big hits.

Cash settled in Manhattan. In 1995, she married producer and songwriter John Leventhal. She had worked with him on The Wheel. She then signed with Capitol Records and released 10 Song Demo in 1996. This album was a collection of simple home recordings.

She also started a writing career. In 1996, Hyperion published her short story collection Bodies of Water, which received good reviews. In 1997, she received an honorary doctorate from Memphis College of Art. She often speaks about writing and music.

In 1998, she and Leventhal began working on a new album. But the recording was stopped because she became pregnant. Even harder, she couldn't sing for two and a half years because of a polyp on her vocal cords.

Cash focused on her writing during this time. She published a children's book, Penelope Jane: A Fairy's Tale (2000). The next year, she edited a collection of short stories by songwriters called Songs Without Rhyme (2001).

Once her voice recovered, she started recording again. In 2003, she released Rules of Travel, her first full album for Capitol. This album featured guest artists like Sheryl Crow and Steve Earle. It also included a touching duet with her father, Johnny Cash, called "September When It Comes." Rules of Travel was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2003.

Rosanne Cash at the 2006 South by Southwest Festival.

In 2006, Cash released Black Cadillac. This album was about the loss of her stepmother, June Carter, and her father, Johnny, who both passed away in 2003. Her mother, Vivian Cash Distin, died in 2005 as Rosanne finished the album. Critics praised the album highly. It was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2006.

Cash toured a lot to support the album. She created a special show with videos, images, and stories from her songs and family history.

In late 2007, Cash had brain surgery for a rare condition called Chiari I malformation. She had to cancel her concerts. The surgery was successful, and she recovered well. She wrote about her experience in The New York Times article "Well, Actually, It Is Brain Surgery." She started writing, recording, and performing again in 2008.

Cash released her next album, The List, on October 6, 2009. This album was inspired by a list of 100 great country and American songs that Johnny Cash gave her when she was 18. Rosanne chose 12 songs from the list for the album. It featured duets with famous singers like Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, and Jeff Tweedy. In 2010, the Americana Music Association named The List the Album of the Year.

Besides her own music, Cash has appeared on albums by many other artists. She has also contributed to tribute albums for musicians like Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix.

Cash wrote Composed: A Memoir (2010), a book about growing up with her famous father and finding her own path as an artist. It became a New York Times Bestseller.

In 2012, Rosanne Cash released the song "Land of Dreams." It was used by Brand USA to promote tourism to the United States.

Cash signed with Blue Note Records in 2013. She released a new album called The River & the Thread on January 14, 2014. This was her first album of new songs in over four years.

The River & the Thread is a collection of songs Rosanne wrote with her husband, John Leventhal. They were inspired by trips through the American South. Cash described it as "a mini-travelogue of the South, and of the soul." Their journey included visits to her father's childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas, and her own early home in Memphis.

Throughout 2014, Cash toured with John Leventhal. They performed songs from The River & the Thread and shared personal stories. The album was the number one album on Americana radio in 2014. Many major publications, like USA Today and The New York Times, named it one of the top albums of the year.

On February 8, 2015, Cash won three Grammy Awards for The River & The Thread. She won for Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Song (with John Leventhal), and Best American Roots Performance for "A Feather's Not A Bird."

In 2015, Cash was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She was also honored as Artist-in-Residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

In 2018, Cash released a new album called "She Remembers Everything." On February 29, 2020, Cash and her band performed at the historic Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Personal Life

Family

Rosanne Cash and her second husband, John Leventhal, in 2013.

Rosanne has three younger sisters: Kathy, Cindy, and Tara. Her parents divorced in 1966.

Her father, Johnny Cash, married June Carter in 1968. June had two daughters from previous marriages. Johnny and June also had a son together, John Carter Cash, who is Rosanne's half-brother.

Rosanne's stepsisters also became country singers:

• Carlene Carter (from June's marriage to singer Carl Smith)
• Rosie Nix Adams, also known as Rosie Carter (from June's marriage to Edwin "Rip" Nix)

Rosanne's stepmother and father passed away in 2003. Her mother passed away in 2005.

Cash married country music singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell in 1979. They have three daughters: Caitlin Rivers, Chelsea Jane, and Carrie Kathleen. Rosanne also helped raise Crowell's daughter, Hannah, from his first marriage. Cash and Crowell divorced in 1992.

She married her second husband, John Leventhal, in 1995. They have one son, Jakob. Rosanne lives with her husband and son in Chelsea, Manhattan.

In February 2021, Cash appeared on the PBS TV show Finding Your Roots. On the show, she learned more about her family's history. Researchers found that one of Rosanne's great-great-great-grandmothers, Sarah A. Shields, was a mixed-race woman born into slavery in South Carolina. Sarah and her eight mixed-race siblings were freed in 1848 by their white father. The show also confirmed that Rosanne Cash and actress Angela Bassett are distant relatives through a shared African-American ancestor.

Other Projects and Interests

Rosanne Cash supports several charities. She has been a board member of The Center To Prevent Youth Violence (CPYV) for a long time. This group works to prevent gun violence among children. She was honored by PAX in 2005 for her work.

Cash often teaches at colleges and universities. She shares her knowledge in English and Songwriting programs.

She has also worked with Children Incorporated for over 25 years. This organization helps support and educate children and young adults around the world.

Rosanne works with Arkansas State University on the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home project. This project has restored her father's childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. The Cash family helps raise money for the restoration through annual music festivals. Rosanne hosted the first two Johnny Cash Music Festivals in 2011 and 2012.

Cash is a strong supporter of artists' rights in the digital age. She is on the board of the Content Creators Coalition. In 2014, she spoke to the U.S. House of Representatives about intellectual property rights and music licensing on the Internet.

In 2018, Berklee College of Music gave Cash an honorary doctorate degree.

Discography

Rosanne Cash during the presentation of her book at the Miami Book Fair International in 2011.

Books and Articles

Rosanne Cash's writing has appeared in many well-known publications. These include The New York Times, The Oxford American, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and Martha Stewart Living.

Awards and Honors

Rosanne Cash has won many awards for her music. She has been recognized by the Academy of Country Music, the Americana Music Association, and the Country Music Association.

Grammy Awards

Rosanne Cash has been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards. She has won 5 of them across different music styles.

Other Honors

In 2021, Rosanne Cash received The Edward MacDowell Medal. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to American culture.

On May 7, 2022, Arkansas State University gave Cash an honorary doctorate degree. She was also the main speaker at their graduation ceremony.

See also

In Spanish: Rosanne Cash para niños