Finally, at the age of 54, Rosanne Cash has become a cover girl.
The eldest daughter of the late Johnny Cash, Rosanne is releasing her twelfth studio album, The List, on October 6 (Manhattan Records). However, it’s the first time she has devoted an entire album to covering other artist's songs on an entire album, while taking guidance from her father.
In 1973, the Man in Black decided to educate his teenage daughter about music, giving her a list of what he considered 100 “essential” country songs. The Southern California girl who back then had a penchant for pop now says they should be considered classic American songs. 
“This list is not only a personal legacy, but I have come to realize it is also a cultural legacy, as important to who we are as Americans as the Civil War, or the Rocky Mountains,” she wrote on her website’s blog.
Turning into a prolific songwriter and Grammy-winning performer who has been in the business for more than 30 years, Cash figured the timing was right to pass along this lesson in American history.
After losing her stepmother, June Carter Cash, as well as her father within months of each other in 2003, her mother, Vivian Liberto, died in 2005. Rosanne then experienced a health scare that necessitated brain surgery in November of 2007, delaying her music career while giving her a chance to reflect on her family's legacy.
Now, thankfully, she is back, and the result is a satisfying, if not totally riveting, record of country comfort. Cash’s cozy vocals and the production/instrumental work of her husband, John Leventhal, provide just the right touch on this all-too-brief collection, which is being marketed as a “contemporary interpretation,” perhaps to reach out beyond the hardcore country masses.
Some songs were written by country legends such as Hank Williams (“Take These Chains From My Heart,” the last song he ever recorded, incidentally), Hank Snow (“I’m Movin’ On”) and Merle Haggard (“Silver Wings”) while others were turned into Nashville gold by classic artists such as Patsy Cline (“She’s Got You”), Jimmie Rodgers (“Miss The Mississippi and You”) and Don Gibson (“Sea of Heartbreak”).
Leventhal is a gifted guitarist and excels throughout, also playing drums, organ, piano and anything else with strings. Combined with Rosanne’s sultry alto, this makes for easy listening in the best possible sense. After hearing her slow-but-lovely takes on “I’m Movin’ On” (sounding like the Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins) and “Take These Chains From My Heart," it’s easy to envision listening to them in front of a crackling fire while watching the first snowflakes of the season fall.
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