Smash hit

At 18, straight out of high school, Rosanne left home to tour with her father’s band. She turned 21 in punk-era London, where family connections secured her a six-month record label job. She then returned to America to study English and drama, but by now the family songwriting genes were active. Cash was 23 when she released her first album, Right or Wrong. It was produced by her first husband, the country singer Rodney Crowell, with whom she had three daughters.

Smartly promoted as the spiky-haired princess of the lean, crisp, back-to-basics New Country movement of the 1980s, Cash scored 11 country chart-toppers and won a Grammy before turning 30. She also spent several years doing “truckloads” of cocaine with Crowell, finally checking herself into an Atlanta treatment centre in 1984.

“I used drugs like everybody else did in the 1970s and 1980s,” she says. “But once I stopped I’ve never had any desire to do it again. I don’t have that addictive thing, and the reason I know I don’t have it is because I have people in my family who do, and it’s painful to watch.”

Based in New York for the past 15 years with her second husband, the record producer John Leventhal, Cash cannot imagine living anywhere else. Never a prolific recording artist, she has spent increasingly long periods writing short stories and raising her family. “I always chose motherhood over my career,” she smiles. “No regrets. Well, I have lots of regrets, but not about any choices I’ve made in favour of my children.”

In 1998, when Cash was pregnant with her youngest son Jake, a polyp on her vocal chords prevented her singing for several years. After recovery and extensive vocal retraining, she finally resurfaced in 2003 with the Grammy-nominated album Rules of Travel. In the meantime she published a children’s book, Penelope Jane: A Fairy Tale, and began work on a Nashville memoir.

She also campaigned against George W. Bush and the Iraq war, carrying on the family tradition of liberal activism. “I’ve always been interested in politics,” she says. “That’s something I got from my dad, he was very interested in world events and social causes. He was kind of addicted to CNN in the last year of his life. He was very opposed to this war, it was heartbreaking for him. He was opposed to any war, though. He was almost a Quaker in his pacifism.”

Rosanne was thrown into political side- taking early in her life. When she was just seven the Ku Klux Klan burnt a cross on the family lawn in reaction to her father’s support for Native American rights. “What I learnt from him is that you have to express what you believe, or you’re not worth your salt. Stand up and say what you believe, even if it goes against the tide.”

Once again, the burden of expectation left by her iconic father seems to fall on Rosanne Cash’s shoulders. “Well,” she says softly, “my father is not an icon. Johnny Cash is an icon.”

Black Cadillac is released by Capitol on Jan 23

Page 2: Following in Daddy's tracks ()

Following in Daddy's tracks

Nancy Sinatra The Sixties icon made a triumphant return last year with an album with These Boots are Made for Walking collaborator Lee Hazlewood.

Lisa Marie Presley Making her debut in 2003 as a ‘rock’ star, Presley continues to tour and perform.

Martha Wainwright Born to Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, she released a debut album last year.

Kelly Osbourne Dropped by her label after her debut album flopped, the reality TV diva has re-invented herself as an electro pop princess.

Nona Gaye Marvin’s daughter released an album in 1992, but has preferred acting, notably in The Matrix sequels.

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