It's a week of memoirs. Not my usual fare, but when I find someone really interesting, I want to read more about them.
I have long been a huge fan of Rosanne's music and couldn't wait to read this book. Thanks to Lindsay over at Viking Penguin, I got the chance to this month!
Synopsis: For thirty years as a musician, Rosanne Cash has enjoyed both critical and commercial success, releasing a series of albums that are as notable for their lyrical intelligence as for their musical excellence.
Now, in her memoir, Cash writes compellingly about her upbringing in Southern California as the child of country legend Johnny Cash, and of her relationships with her mother and her famous stepmother, June Carter Cash. In her account of her development as an artist she shares memories of a hilarious stint as a twenty-year-old working for Columbia Records in London, recording her own first album on a German label, working her way to success, her marriage to Rodney Crowell, a union that made them Nashville's premier couple, her relationship with the country music establishment, taking a new direction in her music and leaving Nashville to move to New York. As well as motherhood, dealing with the deaths of her parents, in part through music, the process of songwriting, and the fulfillment she has found with her current husband and musical collaborator, John Leventhal.
From The List: September When It Comes by Rosanne and Johnny Cash:
Review: Cash's memoir is unconventional in that it doesn't start at the beginning and stay on a timeline. She goes back and forth as stories come to her and her writing style, like her music, is melodic and enchanting and brings you into the story and keeps you reading. For those wondering, it is NOT a tell-all, angst diatribe against her parents bio. Nor is it a counterpoint book to the movie (Walk the Line), rather it is a compelling tale of the pieces of her life that made her the superstar that she is today.
Cash is honest and up front about her own foibles and wrong turns in life. She has included her eulogies for June Carter Cash and her father, Johnny Cash's funerals. I think I will now always see June as she presented her in her eulogy. Both pieces were very moving and spoke to her ability to tell a story. The truth behind the media presented dynamics of a family are always different that we think we know. In Cash's case we're very happy to find out that truth.
This book will resonate with the 6 percenters out there- Cash was once told to perform to the 6% of the audience who are poets. they feel her music and are the ones truly there to hear and be enveloped by her music. her memoir is her life set to music, and to be touched by it is very special indeed. This is an excellent read (which is why I am not giving my copy away-sorry!) and I would recommend it to everyone!
Check out her website for more info on her upcoming shows and cd! And don't forget to follower her on Twitter!You can also read an excerpt from Chapter One there!
And don't miss her excellent interview on ABC News!
I'm Movin On- Perfomance at Waterloo records in 2009: