"When I was 18, I was on the road with my dad. One day, we were sitting in the tour bus, talking about songs, and he mentioned a song, and I said, "I don’t know that one." He mentioned another one, and I said, "I don’t know that one, either." Then he started to get alarmed, so he spent the rest of the day making a list on a legal pad, and at the top he put "100 Essential Country Songs." And he handed it to me and he said, "This is your education."
The Americana Music Association announced the nominees for the 9th annual Americana Awards & Honors. Rosanne’s "The List" is in the running for Album of the Year.
The artist’s forthcoming memoir, Composed, will be released on August 10. Find out more about the book, including book tour dates and pre-order options.
“The List” One Of Most Critically Embraced Albums Of The Year: Rosanne on “Late Late Show” 12/8
(November 30, 2009 - New York, NY) As critics begin to compile their annual Top 10 year-end round-ups, The List - the stunning covers collection from acclaimed singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash is emerging as one of the best reviewed albums of 2009. Having already performed on NBC’s The Today Show and CBS’s The Late Show With David Letterman, and been featured on ABC’s highly rated prime-time TV special “In The Spotlight With Robin Roberts: Bright Lights. Big Stars. All Access Nashville,” Cash will perform on CBS’s The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on December 8th.
Rosanne Cash Nominated For 2010 Grammy Award For “Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals”
December 4th, 2009 — New York, NY — Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash has been nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for “Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals” for “Sea of Heartbreak,” a duet with Bruce Springsteen that appears on her critically acclaimed album The List. This is Cash’s ninth career nomination.
December 4th, 2009 — New York, NY — Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash has been nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for “Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals” for “Sea of Heartbreak,” a duet with Bruce Springsteen that appears on her critically acclaimed album The List. This is Cash’s ninth career nomination.
In Time’s Nov. 20 issue, Rosanne contributes her "Short List" to their regular feature, The Short List of Things to Do. Illustrated!
New York Times Review of “The List” In Concert, October 11, 2009
New York Times "Ms. Cash has a voice both dark and sweet, with a gentle but reliable vibrato, and she knows how to convey the quiet sting of heartache."
NASHVILLE SKYLINE, October 8, 2009: Rosanne Cash Talks About The List "...you have to separate yourself and find out what you love. And then find out what was there all along."
Mr. L and I walked the new Highline with our kids a couple times this summer. What a fantastic idea, to turn the old elevated railway into a meandering park, with natural (or at least natural-LOOKING) plants and flowers, and wonderful vantage points, and tunnels and benches, and impromptu concerts on fire escape balconies. A little bit of everything, just like the city itself.
Friday, July 31
I was crossing a street in the East Village and I saw a man coming toward me with a cat. On a leash. On his head. The cat was sitting very happily on his owner’s head, and I stopped a moment to watch as they walked down the street. Usually weird animal moments happen on the streets without notice, but this guy and his Cat on the Head were getting a lot of attention from passers-by, and they both looked happy to receive it.
I was in an elegant restaurant, sitting near an elderly, well-dressed couple and could not help overhearing this comment from the woman to her male companion: "Well, the MOST adventurous people in MY college were the nymphomaniacs who became lesbians." The man merely nodded in silent understanding. I’m not making this up.
Monday, June 1
The last day of May was spectacular. It was in the mid 70’s, clear, blue and bright. At 4 in the afternoon, Mr. L and I went to a performance at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn of Cynthia Hopkins’ "The Success of Failure (Or the Failure of Success)", directed by our friend D.J. Mendel. It was wild, dark, inspiring and quite brave. Afterwards, we walked back to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge, along with a few hundred other people out enjoying the gorgeous spring day. Mr. L was taken by a fancy in the middle of the bridge and stopped to kiss me, with the skyline and the East River as backdrop. We got in a taxi and went to one of our favorite old-time French bistros, and a jazz combo was playing when we walked in. The door of the restaurant was open to the breeze and the light was scattering across the hundred-year-old floorboards. After dinner, we walked out into a beautiful fading sky, and walked the ten blocks home. It was kind of a perfect day, one which makes you happy to live in New York, where there is art, architecture, history, rivers, French cuisine, jazz music, antique buildings and romance at every turn.
Overheard walking down the sidewalk: "I SLEEPWALK faster than you." (Okay, my husband said it to me. But he’s abnormal. I am a very fast walker. It’s just that he’s a lot taller and his strides are inhuman.)
A story from my son’s piano teacher: she asked her students to become ‘metronomes’, and to do an informal survey of beats and rhythms in the city. One of her students listened intently and then said, with some disappointment, ‘But—I thought Metronomes were gnomes who lived in the subway."
In my nearly eighteen years of living in New York City, I’ve never seen this until today: a stark naked man walking down Seventh Avenue. It was twenty degrees, and he did not have a single stitch of clothing on. Nothing. Nada. He was young, probably in his mid-twenties, and didn’t look too crazy. It was puzzling.
He stopped at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street and stood waving his arms and yelling. A street vendor who had a table of scarves for sale at that corner quickly brought one over to him and tried to convince him to tie it around his waist, but it didn’t really do the job. Within a few minutes, a paddy wagon pulled up and three of New York’s finest jumped out, two female officers and one male. The women averted their eyes, and the male officer cuffed the poor guy. While the police officer was holding the naked man up against the van, he made a cell phone call, and apparently got permission to buy a large scarf from the street vendor, which he did, and then wrapped around the guy before guiding him into the van.
A crowd had gathered by this time, and a couple of people got out cameras to take pictures. The female officers shooed them away, and the naked guy, at that point quiet and subdued, started shaking with the cold. I felt very bad for him. What drives a young man to take off all his clothes and walk down the avenue in the dead of winter? And what would happen to him once they got him to the precinct?
We have a friend who recently moved from Tennessee to New York, and we had him over for dinner a few nights ago. We were listening to him describe the pros and cons of moving to New York, and the enormous transition he is currently navigating. He mused about how long he might stay in the city. After listening quietly for a few minutes, my nine-year-old son finally interjected with some stridency, "But… are you going to get your green card??" I’ve always maintained that Manhattan is indeed an island off the coast of America, but I didn’t realize how fully my son had integrated that notion.
I live in Chelsea, about twenty blocks straight south of Times Square, and I could hear the roars from my bedroom window at about 11 pm election night, when Obama was declared President-elect. The celebration here in Chelsea, and all around the city, went on until the wee hours. There was literally Dancing In The Streets. There was a group in the East Village who gathered spontaneously to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner". American flags went up all over. Personally, we posted a little handmade sign in the window, next to the pumpkin decorations, that said "Yes, We Did!" What an exciting moment.
NYTimes on “Science of the Five Senses”
Rosanne will be a panelist on a new lecture series by the New York Academy of Sciences. The series, "Science of the Five Senses", connects leading scientists with artists in an exploration of their work. Rosanne will be appearing with psychologist Daniel Levitin on April 29, 2009. For more information on the series, read the NY Times article and visit the New York Academy of Sciences web site.
We had our first real cold day in the city yesterday and it was fun to see everyone break out their winter duds. I have made an informal observation over the years about who really dresses for the weather, and who rebels against appropriate cold-weather garb. If I want to know how cold it is, and how to dress, I look out my window and watch passers-by for a few minutes to get my cue. Just opening the door and sticking my hand out never works, because once I’m out for a few minutes it is always colder than I thought. Okay, here comes a young, straight man, wearing a hoodie. No, can’t trust him. I’ll freeze to death. Teenage girl in a mini-skirt and Ugg boots with only a scarf for warmth? Are you kidding? I’ll have pneumonia by 4 pm. Pizza delivery guy? Shirtsleeves. Right, he just ran out of the restaurant and didn’t bother putting a jacket on. No reliable information there. Okay, here comes the exact right person for my weather info: a mom pushing a stroller. She AND the baby have on coat, scarf, gloves and a hat. Thank you, Mom! I’ll be toasty all day.
Wednesday, October 22
Because the euro is so strong and the dollar so weak, the city is overrun with foreign tourists right now, all laden down with shopping bags. I see plenty of signs in store windows that say ‘Euros accepted’. I even saw one sign that said, ‘Euros ONLY’. I won’t mention any names. You know who you are, nice antique store. My daughter and I were in Bloomingdales last month, going up the escalator and as we got off, we saw a tall, striking young woman with a thick Brooklyn accent hawking perfume where people were getting on and off the escalator. No one paid any attention to her, so she amped up the volume and, in full Brooklynese, said, "BONJOUR! CA VA! BONJOUR, PEOPLE!"
I stepped into an elevator which was full of seven or eight African-American women, all leaning over a stroller and cooing at an adorable, pudgy-cheeked, wide-eyed African-American baby, who looked to be about 2 years old.
Her mother kept saying gently, "Tell them your name. Tell them your name," but the baby would not comply. The elevator door opened and all the ladies started to walk out and suddenly the baby bellowed, in a voice loud enough to fill a ball park, "MY NAME IS BARACK OBAMA!" Everyone broke into peals of laughter. I leaned over and said to the baby, ‘So, you’re going to be president!" and she bellowed back, "YES!"
Tuesday, October 7
I know it’s summer when the old guy in the building next door parks his plastic lawn chair on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building sometime after lunch, and sits there for the entire afternoon watching the traffic and the passersby as if he is watching the waves and boats from the seashore. And I know it’s Fall when he stops bringing his plastic chaise outdoors and he becomes just another sidewalk surfer, head down and jacket zipped all the way up as he trudges down the street. It’s Fall.
Tuesday, September 23
a memory: when my son was three years old, he went to the library with a group of kids and two other moms. One of the moms was showing the kids the globe of the world and pointing out different countries. She asked my son, a native New Yorker who has never lived above 23rd Street, "Do you know what country you live in?" He stuck out his chest proudly. "I live in the country of DOWNTOWN!" he said. Still true.
Saturday, September 13
A car alarm directly across the street from my living room window went off for forty-five minutes before I called 311, the city services hotline. First, however, I taped a note to the window of the car saying, ‘YOUR CAR ALARM IS STUCK! PEOPLE LIVE IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD!’. Within 10 minutes of calling 311, a squad car was there, and one of New York’s finest was writing a ticket. I walked across the street. "Hi, I’m the one who called." The officer looked up. "Are you also the one who wrote the nice note taped to the window?" "Yes, I am!" I said. "But I did restrain myself from throwing eggs." The officer told me to call 311 again and have the car towed, since they couldn’t turn it off. I went inside and told my daughter what he said. "But mommy," she said, ‘If you have their car towed, you’ll ruin their day." True. I didn’t call 311 back. The alarm stopped about ten minutes later.