Roseanne Cash biography

Synopsis

Famous Father

Musician Rosanne Cash was born on May 24, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee. The oldest of four, Cash and her siblings are most famously known as the children of legendary country musician Johnny Cash and his first wife Vivian Liberto. Rosanne and her family moved to California in 1958, shortly after her father's musical career gained traction. But after her parents' divorce in 1966, when she was 11 years old, Rosanne and her siblings relocated to Ventura, California, to live with their mother.

Cash inherited a love of music from her father and, upon graduation from high school in 1973, she joined her father's tour as a wardrobe assistant and background singer. After spending three years with her father's revue, she spent a year in London, England, working for CBS Records. She returned home a year later to attend Vanderbilt University in Nashville, but after only a year at the college she headed back to California to study method acting with the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. But music was her first love, and by 1978 she decided she was ready to hit the big time as a solo artist. She took a break from school to record a demo with producer Rodney Crowell, a songwriter for famed country musician Emmylou Harris. Their work relationship soon blossomed into a romantic one, and Cash and Crowell began dating soon after the demo was finished.

Cash eventually signed to the German-based Ariola label, and traveled to Munich, Germany, to record her debut album, the self-titled Rosanne Cash (1978). While the recording never hit U.S. record stores, it finally provided Cash with the kind of reputation she needed to sign with Columbia Records in Nashville.

Country Star

In 1979, Cash and Crowell married. Cash began playing with Crowell's band The Cherry Bombs in California clubs, while she began recording for her first U.S. album, Right or Wrong (1980). The album was a commercial success, but Cash did not tour extensively to promote the record after she discovered she was pregnant with her first child. Cash's pregnancy didn't keep her from going to the studio to record, however, and in 1981 she and Crowell moved to Nashville to work on Seven Year Ache (1981). Also produced by Crowell, the album achieved gold status and reached as high as No.