“Sometimes, a newspaper will still call me ‘Johnny Cash’s daughter,’” said the 61-year-old singer/songwriter and author. “You’d think after doing this for so many years, winning four Grammys, lifetime achievement awards, residencies at the Library of Congress, blah blah blah, I just can’t imagine a man ever being referred to by the woman he’s related to after accomplishing that much. I just think it’s the most sexist thing in the world. But as far as his music and my legacy goes, I have nothing but pride.”
Cash and her husband, John Leventhal, are performing in downtown Cincinnati this weekend, continuing their long tour in support of the 2014 album they wrote together, “The River & The Thread,” which was inspired by a 2011 journey through the American South. The music and lyrics are part travelogue, part cultural meditation. The inspiration for the album came when Cash was asked to participate in the restoration of her father’s childhood home in Arkansas.
“While I was working on the fundraising concert, Marshall Grant died,” she said. “He was my father’s original bassist; I’d known him my whole life. Being in my dad’s childhood home after both of my parents were gone was very powerful. With that confluence of events, John suggested there was something we could write about.”
Cash and Leventhal’s trips included Alabama and the Mississippi Delta. One of their more profound moments came on the Tallahatchie Bridge, which was not only the referenced place of the famous Bobbie Gentry country song, “Ode to Billie Joe,” but also just a few miles from the grave of Robert Johnson, the legendary bluesman, and the site of the murder of Emmett Till, who notoriously payed a brutal price for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
“Doing this record made me think a lot about race and how much I owe black musicians,” Cash said. “I met a 90-year-old black harmonica player, and he was really deferential toward me. It should’ve been the other way around. But he was 90 years old, and it was just so deeply ingrained that that’s how you acted toward white women.”
Growing up in Southern California and living in Europe and New York City for long stretches of time, Cash felt little connection to the South for much of her life, despite her roots.
“I felt oppressed by it,” she said. “I didn’t like the territoriality, the closeness. But living where I’ve lived and having a bigger view of the world, I think the South is very special. I like the shared loyalties and sense of tribe, as long as it’s positive.”
Nevertheless, Cash said that “The River & The Thread” is not a political album.
“We’re not here to say what’s good and what’s bad,” she said. “We’re just pointing in a certain direction and saying, ‘look what happened here.’”
At the Cincinnati show, Cash will be doing a meet-and-greet for select fans, as she has often done on previous shows for this tour. She said fans have diverse reactions to the music and the stories behind the music.
“Some people say it made them want to explore their own ancestry, the geography of where their people came from,” she said. “But others just like the melody.”
HOW TO GO
What: Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal
Where: Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St., Cincinnati
When: Feb. 10, 6:30 p.m. (reception), 8 p.m. (show)
Cost: $35-$55
More Info: 513-977-8838 or visit www.memorialhallotr.com
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