Rosanne Cash’s Northern Colorado concert to explore life with dad Johnny Cash

By Jessica Benes

No one but Rosanne Cash knows what it felt like to grow up with the legacy of a father named Johnny Cash.

While working with Arkansas State University to restore her dad’s childhood home in Dyess, Ark., Cash was inspired to reconnect with her roots.

A formidable musician in her own right, Cash’s latest project, The River and the Thread, is meant to be a tribute to her home, her father and her history, according to Susan Herlihy, public relations coordinator at the Lincoln Center in Fort Collins.

“She will literally be coming with slides and stories about what it was like to grow up in that legacy,” Herlihy said. “It’s an album filled with songs and stories from the American south.”

Herlihy said that while Cash often still is perceived as a country artist, she has moved well beyond that. This latest album draws from country, blues, gospel and rock.

“We’re really honored to have an artist like Rosanne come to the Lincoln Center. It is a great start to 2015,” Herlihy said. “This latest project blends her undeniable musical chops with a poignant longing for her past. I think anyone that comes to this performance will be in for an incredible treat.”

Herlihy said the Lincoln Center staff works hard to curate a mix of music, comedy, musical theater and family programming so that they always have a high caliber of performance for everyone to enjoy.

During an interview with Forrest Hartman for The Clarion of Brazosport College in Texas, Cash said that while researching the songs for the album, she visited the house she lived in after she was born, her father’s boyhood home in the Sunken Lands of Arkansas, William Faulkner’s house in Oxford, Miss., Dockery Farms “where all the great blues musicians picked cotton and played the blues” and Robert Johnson’s grave.

“These were life-changing experiences. And they felt deeply familiar and resonant. That was the best revelation,” Cash told Hartman.

The songs on The River and the Thread are from stories and characters across generations of the Cash family. “The Sunken Lands,” named for the area where Johnny Cash grew up, recounts the difficult life of his mother, Carrie. The moody Southern sound of “The Long Way Home” draws on details from the lives of Rosanne and her family.

“The sentiment is universal,” Cash, who could not be reached for an interview for this story, said in a news release. “Most of us go a long way and try a lot of things before we come home to ourselves.”

Jessica Benes: 970-669-5050 (ext. 530), jbenes@aespotlight.com, twitter.com/jessicabenes.