This article first appeared in the S. Louis Beacon, Sept. 26, 2011 - Singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash will be appearing at Blueberry Hill's Duck Room this Tuesday evening, but don't expect her to sing any of the 11 number-one hit country singles she's recorded since she first began releasing albums in 1978.
And Cash won't be performing other classic songs from her critically acclaimed albums "Seven Year Ache," "King's Record Shop," "The Wheel," "Black Cadillac" (the 2005 musical elegy to her legendary father, Johnny Cash; her mother, Vivian, and her stepmother, June Carter Cash).
Instead Rosanne Cash's Duck Room appearance will focus on another aspect of her artistry -- her talent as a writer of prose. Specifically, Cash with be talking about -- and reading from -- her most recent work, "Composed: A Memoir."
Published last year, Cash's recollections of growing up and becoming a signer/songwriter, and eventually a prose writer, as the daughter of an international musical icon is a fascinating, memorable, eloquently honest and often lyrically compelling read.
Cash loved her father devotedly, but his fame made it very difficult for her to establish her own identity as a musical artist. "He cast an obviously large shadow," she writes, "and it was hard for me to find my own place outside of it, or to be comfortable when the shadow was the first thing people noticed about my life or my work."
Growing up, Cash grew to accept the frequent absences of her famous father because of his constant touring across the country. And by the time she was 12, her father had divorced her birth mother, Vivian, and soon married another country legend, June Carter of the famed Carter Family.
As a result, Rosanne Cash -- already a voracious reader as a child -- withdrew from these personal difficulties and initially saw a future for herself as a writer. Here's how she describes that development of her love of words:
"But out of various forms of personal catastrophe comes art, if you're lucky. And I have been lucky. I have also been driven by a deep love and obsession with language, poetry and melody. I had first wanted to be a writer, in a quiet room, setting depth charges of emotion in the outside world, where my readers would know me only by my language."
Things changed for her when her father invited her to join him on tour after she graduated from high school. Rosanne spent more than two years touring with her famous father, and reconnected with a musical tradition that went back several generations - one she absorbed from her father and other musicians - and one she decided to follow as well.
"I learned to play guitar from my stepmother's sister Helen, from Mother Maybelle Carter, and from Carl Perkins, all of whom were on the road with Dad at the time," she writes. "Each day I spent many hours in dressing rooms, practicing chords and the old songs they taught me. I discovered a passion for songwriting that remains undiminished to this day and that led me into my life as a writer and singer -- into my family's vocation."
"Composed" is actually Cash's third book. She published a collection of short stories, "Bodies of Water," in 1996. She wrote a children's book, "Penelope Jane: A Fairy's Tale, in 2000." Cash also edited -- and contributed to -- "Songs Without Rhyme" Prose by Celebrated Songwriters," published in 2001. She asked 13 songwriters, including David Byrne, Shawn Colvin, her father, her ex-husband Rodney Crowell, and others to write a prose piece based on a song they had written.
Although it was published in 2010, "Composed" actually began as a single essay, "The Ties That Bind," that Cash wrote in 2000 and was chosen to be included in the anthology, "Best Music Writing 2000." At the end of "Composed," Cash thanks her editor at Viking, Rick Kot, for recognizing that essay as the germ for a longer memoir that eventually was finished a decade later.
With "Composed," Rosanne Cash has provided us with an eloquent and moving look at a life lived in full and examined with intelligence, wit and emotion -- both in intimate, private moments and on public stages. Unlike many celebrity autobiographies, "Composed" avoids sensationalism for its own sake, but never shies away from honest moments of love, heartbreak, loss and redemption. And Cash's insight and gift as a writer make those personal moments resonate with meaning for all of us.
Readers of this fascinating memoir will want to thank Kot as well for encouraging Rosanne Cash to complete it. And they will have an opportunity to hear Cash discuss the book and her music - and thank her in person - this Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at Blueberry Hill's Duck Room.
Terry Perkins is a freelance writer.