Daughter of the legendary Man In Black talks about their relationship and tells how he encouraged her music career
It’s never easy to step out of the shadow of a famous parent in showbusiness — and when your dad is American country music icon Johnny Cash, the mountain might seem an impossible climb.
But Grammy Award-winning Rosanne Cash, who turns 69 this month and is getting set to perform in Ireland in June, succeeded in rising above her dad’s phenomenal fame to create her own legendary status.
The eldest daughter of the Man in Black tells the Sunday World: “It was difficult going into the same field as my dad, being a songwriter and a performer, and what a shadow he had cast. But I think it would have been harder if I were a boy. But it was still hard. I’m not complaining that it was hard, it was hard and that’s great; I learned a lot.”
Rosanne says she enjoyed a close, loving relationship with her father and also recalls Johnny Cash’s love affair with Ireland, which inspired him to write one of his signature songs, Forty Shades of Green.
“He loved Ireland so much,” Rosanne says. “And he loved telling the story of the old guy who said to him one day when he was on tour there, ‘It’s great that you’re singing our old Irish song, Forty Shades of Green.’ Dad never tired of telling us that story. He got such a kick out of it.”
There are positives as well as negatives to having a famous family member, and the positives for Rosanne were the opportunities it gave her starting out in the business.
“Oh yeah, sitting in the wings and watching him perform a few hundred shows was an education in itself,” she tells me.
And you had a great relationship? “With my dad? I did. We understood each other.”
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He was encouraging? “So encouraging…and encouraging in a way that only a parent can be. Like he’d say, ‘That’s great!’… even when it wasn’t great…just unconditional encouragement.”
He was a big softie? “He was a big softie,” she laughs.
Rosanne, who has three daughters from her first marriage to singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, and a son with her now husband, the musician, songwriter and producer John Leventhal, reveals that she and Leventhal are planning to check out his family roots in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, when they’re in Ireland next month.
“I have family roots on my father’s side – we are Scots-Irish mutts – but my husband John’s grandmother was from Tullamore,” she says. “I’m looking at John’s whiskey tray here and I see a bottle of Tullamore Dew. We have a day off when we are in Ireland next month, so we’re planning to hire a car and visit Tullamore.”
Rosanne and John are coming over to perform a gala concert at Dublin’s National Concert Hall on Thursday, June 13, to launch the Musician Treatment Foundation (MTF) in Ireland.
Founded as a non-profit in the US in July 2017 by orthopaedic surgeon Dr Alton Barron, MTF provides free upper limb orthopaedic care to eligible professional musicians through their special Physicians for Musicians network. Through this network, MTF has assisted hundreds of injured musicians both at home and on tour in America.
It’s overseen by a 16-member board of directors, including Elvis Costello and Diana Krall, that contributes experience and expertise to support MTF’s work to keep the music playing. (For more visit: https://mtfusa.org/about/).
“We are strong supporters of Dr Alton Barron,” Rosanne says. “He actually operated on my wrist. Musicians are prone to repetitive injuries and he performed surgeries for free on musicians who couldn’t afford it. That’s what this foundation provides.
"We found out about it through Elvis Costello, our dear friend for many decades, and he’s a strong supporter of the MTF.
“I know what it’s like to have an injury or an issue that stops you performing. I had vocal polyps twice and had to stop working for two years and it was devastating.
"My voice is my main instrument, and to not be able to use it... I got very depressed. But beyond the emotional toll, while I was fine financially, for some musicians it ruins their lives.”
Rosanne, who now lives in New York, is also an activist who has been particularly outspoken on gun control in America.
“The issue I’ve been most passionate and most outspoken about is gun control and that’s made me a few enemies,” she says. “I get incensed that schoolchildren have to do shooting drills in school.”
Cash was also enraged by the overturning of America’s Roe v Wade case, which protected the right to abortion for women in all 50 States.
“I’m enraged and in shock that we now live under what amounts to an American Taliban,” she said at the time on social media.
“What’s happening to women in this country, what they are trying to do to women makes me insane as a mother of four daughters,” she tells me today.
“It’s going backwards instead of forwards. I always thought progress went in one direction, but apparently not.”
- Tickets are now on sale for Rosanne Cash & John Leventhal Gala Concert at Dublin’s National Concert Hall on Thursday, June 13.
