Austin TX music: Music listings, bands, music news, reviews, SXSW and ACL

The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Austin Music

	Johnny Cash: 1932-2003 More: • Common Man's Hero • The Loss of a Legend • The Night Cash Rocked Sixth St. • Rosanne Cash Finds Solace in Legacy

Rosanne Cash finds solace in family legacy

By John T. Davis
Austin American-Statesman

"We've been standing at our dad's bedside for 10 years, and June just kind of slips away while our attention was elsewhere," Rosanne Cash said from her home in New York. "It was shocking, and we're all still shocked at the ramifications of that. Mortality becomes front and center."

The day was Saturday, four months after her stepmother, June Carter Cash, died unexpectedly after heart surgery, and less than a week before her famous father, who has been ailing for years, abruptly followed his wife to the hereafter. The occasion of the interview was to promote her appearance at next week's Austin City Limits Music Festival. (At presstime, her booking agency did not know if Cash would honor the date.)

Did she have a sense that the torch of the Carter/Cash tradition was on the verge of being passed to her? "Oh my God," she exclaimed. "If I thought that, I'd never get any work done; it would be too overwhelming.

"There's no torch. The place of my dad's is an iconic place in musical history, and there's not very many of those. There's much more comfort, and a sense of satisfaction, in just seeing myself as part of this group.

"When you're younger, you're trying to get away from your family, trying to carve out your own niche in the world. But as you get older, wow. There's so much value in being connected to tradition, to a generational thing, however far back it goes. And I feel very connected, not only to my dad, but to June's family history, as well, and that Carter Family lexicon."

As she spoke last Saturday, her voice betrayed no untoward anxiety about her father, who at the time was scheduled for release from the hospital following his latest bout with pneumonia. She did, though, speak of the haunting songs she has written for a forthcoming album.

"There's a record I'm writing right now, I'm six or seven songs into it, and it's a little scary -- they all turn out to be about death."

Cash's most recent album, "Rules of Travel," features a guest vocal from her father, who lends a weary dignity to "September When It Comes," a song Rosanne penned with her husband John Leventhal. The lyrics describe a man's embrace of death: "I plan to crawl outside these walls/Close my eyes and see/And fall into the heart and arms/Of those who wait for me."

"Sometimes," Rosanne Cash said with unknowing prescience, "a song is like a postcard to the future."

Now Playing in Central Texas Search for movies playing at theaters across Central Texas, purchase tickets, read reviews from our team of critics and leave your own review.

CENTRAL TEXAS BARS AND RESTAURANTS Find a new bar or restaurant to try tonight. Search by cuisine type, distance, location and price range. Then be sure to come back and leave a review.