VIVIAN WANG
Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal.
I listened to a podcast recently featuring Grammy award-winning artist Rosanne Cash, who said that “an artist is in the service industry of the heart and soul.” She has served her fans well since the late 1970s by sharing so much of herself through her intimate songs, her activism and her books.
You can hear her perform along with her husband John Leventhal, a Grammy-winning songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, Sept. 19. Tickets will go on sale June 6 at 10 a.m.; visit outpostintheburbs.org.
Cash’s elegant voice adds a haunting quality to her songs, including “House on the Lake” (from her 2006 Black Cadillac album), which is about the loss of her father, country music legend Johnny Cash, and her stepmother, June Carter Cash. In a strong, passionate voice, she sings:
I miss the sounds of Tennessee
And the smell of heavy rain
The roses in the garden
Laugh before the pain
But I hear his voice close in my ear
I see her smile and wave
I blink and while my eyes are closed
They both have gone away
Blue bare room, the wood and nails
There’s nothing left to take
But love and years are not for sale
In our old house on the lake.
PAMELA SPRINGSTEEN
ROSANNE CASH
Her tale is relatable and her pain is palpable, and if I let my mind wander it is easy to think of those I have lost. That is the magic of Rosanne Cash. She provides stirring details in her songs that resonate deeply. The more details she provides, the easier it is to empathize with her experience, too.
She sings of growing up in her famous and often troubled family, and of love, loss and survival. A genre-defying artist — incorporating country, folk, pop and rock into her music — she first gained major national attention in 1981 with her hit “Seven Year Ache.”
The 1990s was a Cash decade for me. I spent a lot of time listening to her introspective songs on Interiors (1990) and The Wheel (1993), both filled with reflections on her failed marriage to singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell. She married Leventhal, who co-produced The Wheel, in 1995.
She has recorded songs on her albums with many notable artists, including her father, Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Costello and Jeff Tweedy. She won three Grammy awards in 2015, including one for Best Americana Album for The River & the Thread.
She is also a prolific prose writer, having written a 2010 memoir (“Composed,” a New York Times bestseller), the children’s book “Penelope Jane: A Fairy’s Tale” (2000), and essays that have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville is now hosting an exhibition titled “Rosanne Cash: Time Is a Mirror,” exploring her 40-year journey as an artist. It closes in March 2026.
Cash and Leventhal are currently co-writing the music for a theatrical production of the 1979 film “Norma Rae.”
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