{"id":147036,"date":"2025-03-07T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=147036"},"modified":"2025-03-07T09:06:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T17:06:49","slug":"living-the-legacy-rosanne-cash-on-celebrating-her-father-and-curating-her-own-musical-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/living-the-legacy-rosanne-cash-on-celebrating-her-father-and-curating-her-own-musical-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Legacy\u2014Rosanne Cash on Celebrating Her Father and Curating Her Own Musical Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When talking to Rosanne Cash, it\u2019s hard to avoid the word legacy<\/em>. (For the record, she said it first, in the second exchange of our Q&A below.) And what a legacy she represents, not only by virtue of her lineage\u2014daughter of one American musical icon, Johnny Cash, and stepdaughter of another, June Carter Cash\u2014but through her own work as a musician. Over a 45-year, 18-album career, Cash has built an estimable reputation for herself. Much like her predecessor Emmylou Harris and her contemporaries Nanci Griffith and Lucinda Williams, she has always gravitated toward something rawer, less sentimental, and more singer-songwriter\u2013focused than much of the music that ruled the country airwaves of the 1970s and \u201980s: a style that decades later would come to be called Americana. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past couple of years, Cash has been heavily involved in the management of that reputation and that legacy. The results can now be viewed by all in Rosanne Cash:<\/em> Time Is a Mirror<\/em><\/a>, a retrospective exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville that opened in December 2024 and runs through March 2026. This long walk through Cash\u2019s personal and professional history is chock-full of priceless artifacts\u2014including, of course, guitars (more on those in this article\u2019s sidebar). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conjunction with the exhibit, there\u2019s also a new two-CD best-of on the market, Rosanne Cash: The Essential Collection<\/a><\/em>. It\u2019s just one of several archival releases we should be seeing over the coming years on RumbleStrip Records, the label Cash recently founded with her partner in music and life for more than three decades, guitarist\/songwriter\/producer John Leventhal<\/a>. After starting RumbleStrip, Cash acquired the master tapes to all the recordings she\u2019d made for Columbia Records over 17 years; that catalog includes classic albums like Seven Year Ache<\/a><\/em> (1981), King\u2019s Record Shop<\/a><\/em> (1987), and Interiors<\/a><\/em> (1990).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last but by no means least, Cash took a hands-on role in developing two new limited-edition Gibson Custom acoustic guitars: the Johnny Cash SJ-200<\/a>, modeled after a pair of Super Jumbos that the company built for the Man in Black in the late 1950s, and the Rosanne Cash J-185<\/a>, which, although inspired by her eminent father\u2019s guitar, is very much its own instrument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cash spoke about these subjects and more in a warm and insightful interview with Acoustic Guitar<\/em>, conducted via Zoom, from her home in New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m presuming that the signature models were something that Gibson approached you about rather than an idea you came up with. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would have never thought of such a thing [laughs<\/em>].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was the idea always to do two models, one for you and one for your dad?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, they wanted to do a reissue of his and a release of mine at the same time. They thought it would be cool to do that with me at this point in my life and my career. It took me a minute to come around to it. In the beginning, I wasn\u2019t sure. Then the more I talked to John [Leventhal] about it, I thought, that\u2019s really a beautiful idea. My dad and I are<\/em> the only father and daughter in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and this kind of was on a par with that. It just made me feel like, yeah, this legacy is important to own and step into. And it was a beautiful way to do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Johnny Cash SJ-200 and Rosanne Cash J-185 – Courtesy of Gibson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t want my guitar to be exactly like my dad\u2019s, obviously. And John and I, after much discussion, both between the two of us and with [Gibson senior director of entertainment relations] Peter Leinheiser and [Gibson director of acoustic guitar sales and marketing] Robi Johns, came up with a design that suited me better. The J-185, which my model is based on, is just a better size for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t really see you playing a Super Jumbo like your dad.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. I\u2019m only five-four. It wouldn\u2019t make sense. So this size is perfect. I\u2019ve already taken it on the road and been playing it live; it sounds phenomenal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, my dad\u2019s model is an aggressive guitar, and I say that fondly. It comes at you: the color, the script, the size. And I wanted something that was more feminine and subtle, the honey tone and CASH just done in that simple font, and the curves on the pickguard. I went back and forth with them many times about the shape of the pickguard. His pickguard is very angular, and it covers a lot of real estate. I wanted something smaller that had curves in it rather than points and angles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My soundman really likes the sound of this Gibson live. It cuts through, but it\u2019s also warm. It\u2019s very well balanced. They put a [L.R. Baggs] pickup in it. I don\u2019t really know that much about pickups, to tell you the truth, but John felt like this was the best one for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was John involved in the design of the guitar?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He suggested the woods [flame maple body, Sitka spruce top, mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard]. You know, he\u2019s got over a hundred guitars, he knows a lot about guitars, and he\u2019s somewhat of a luthier himself. He felt that those would be the best woods for that size guitar and for how I play, and he was right. He also had to pull me back from the ledge when I wanted too much mother-of-pearl on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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