Why wouldn't Rosanne Cash answer her own phone? I don't know, really, apart from the fact that she's, well, Rosanne Cash, eldest daughter of the legendary Johnny Cash, a woman who's had 21 Top 40 singles in the US, a Grammy Award and two gold albums.
The same Rosanne Cash who's edited a collection of short stories, written a best-selling memoir, contributes to the New York Times, is the mother of five children, has survived the loss of her three parents in quick succession and her own health crisis, which resulted in brain surgery in 2007.
Surveyed like that, in a list that could never do justice to the complexity of a life but captures those events that shape it, like tent poles pushing up unwieldy canvas, Cash's life story leaves you a little in awe - and with the impression that she definitely would not pick up her own phone.
But that's how it is with Rosanne Cash: easy assumptions don't apply.
Cash is the woman who struggled to escape her father's shadow and yet has carried on his legacy brilliantly. She's the woman whom you might think is a stalwart of the country establishment, a fixture in Nashville, but in fact she lives in (and loves) New York.
The woman who, far from resting on her laurels (or her name), writes songs and books, tours and collaborates as if there's no tomorrow.
Recent projects include four songs written and performed with Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Costello and in a couple of months she'll be working with Billy Bragg and Joe Henry.
"I love those two gentlemen," is how she sums up her excitement.
"I feel a lot of energy and I've got a lot of goals," she says. "It's good. At my age too (she's 55] when a lot of people are thinking about retiring, I feel like there's so much I want to accomplish."
For the first time, but not the last, it strikes me that this may well be a family trait. For the first time, but not the last, she laughs.
"My dad worked up to a couple of weeks before his death. It's not something confined to musicians or my dad, great artists don't quit. It's part of who they are, it's their life force. Even when he was so sick, my father would get up and get his guitar and go to the studio
