Musical heritages don’t get much richer than Rosanne Cash’s – not only in terms of her family’s exceptional legacy, but also her own vital contributions to the American song canon, across a career spanning over four decades.

The Memphis-born singer-songwriter – the eldest daughter of Johnny Cash and his first wife Vivian Liberto – has, over the course of 14 albums, acquired four Grammy Awards, an honorary membership of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a spot in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, among other accolades. But, as her father found before her, there is rarely a straightforward path in the music industry – and Rosanne has navigated her fair share of twists, turns and career resets.

Following a string of successful albums in the ‘80s, her career shot off in a notable new direction in the early ‘90s, as Rosanne – following her divorce from Rodney Crowell – relocated from Nashville to New York. In 1993, she released her eighth studio album, The Wheel, officially marking the beginning of a special, decades-spanning creative relationship with her now-husband: producer and musician John Leventhal.

The pair are now gearing up to make their eagerly anticipated return to the National Concert Hall in Dublin next week, for a gala concert to benefit the launch of the Musician Treatment Foundation in Ireland.

Rosanne Cash & John Leventhal. Credit: Sam Rayner

Speaking to me from her home in New York, Rosanne recalls numerous past visits to Ireland, including a “tremendously moving” show she was involved in at the NCH, which marked the centenary of the Easter Rising – describing her inclusion in the celebrations as “an honour.”

Noting that there “were plenty of Cashs who drifted down from Scotland into Ireland” over the years, she tells me that her connection to this part of the world has always been strong.

“And not just ancestrally, but musically,” she resumes. “A lot of my music, and my dad’s music, was rooted in that Celtic melancholy. That ballad tradition was like the template I worked from, and it shaped the writer I became.”

For the night that’s in it, Rosanne hints that the upcoming Dublin show might include a special performance of her father’s famous ‘Forty Shades of Green’, which he originally penned during a trip to Ireland in 1959.

“I don’t know how I could not do it!” she laughs. “My dad always told the funniest story about playing ‘Forty Shades of Green’. I don’t remember how many years it was after he wrote it, but an old gentleman came up to him and said, ‘Ah, it’s a fine Irish folk song you’re singing there!’ And my dad said, ‘No sir, I wrote that song!’ And the man got incensed: ‘No! It’s a fine old Irish folk song!’

“Paul Brady and I actually sang it at one of the Transatlantic Sessions that we filmed in Scotland,” she adds. “That was such a moment for me. I loved it.”

The launch of the Musician Treatment Foundation in Ireland is also important to Rosanne. She first came into contact with the non-profit organisation – which works to ‘fund free surgical and nonsurgical care for the shoulder, elbow, and hand problems of under- and uninsured professional musicians’ – through one of its board members, Elvis Costello.

“He’s been a dear friend of mine for decades,” Rosanne says of Elvis. “He was doing a benefit for them in Austin, Texas, and invited us to take part in it. It was fantastic, and really fun. I got to know Dr Alton Barron, who’s the head of the foundation. He’s a surgeon, so he provides these services, operating on musicians who are suffering injuries that are preventing them from performing.

“The repetitive injuries that come from playing an instrument are so common,” she continues. “Alton operated on my wrist – and I wasn’t exactly Axl Rose, thrashing around the stage! I’m just a guitar player! So I’m hoping that this fundraiser will provide services for some musicians in Ireland.”

It’s a cause close to Rosanne’s heart for multiple reasons – from her frustrations over America’s failure to provide universal healthcare in the first place, to her own health struggles.

“I’ve seen how illness, disability and injury can just sideline someone’s career,” she states. “I had vocal polyps twice. I had brain surgery [in 2007, for a Chiari malformation] that put me out of commission for a couple of years. I’m well aware of how it feels to be taken off the field.”

Although performing was often impossible during those tough years, she tells me that “listening to music was definitely a respite.”

“Listening to music is healing no matter what state you’re in,” she reflects. “I’ll listen to anything. Some classical, like [Samuel] Barber and Arvo Pärt. Some rock, like The Decemberists. Some singer-songwriters, like John Prine. It all depends on the mood you’re in, and the kind of sustenance you’re looking for.”

Her first album after the brain surgery was 2009’s The List. Made up of tracks selected from a list of essential country songs that Rosanne's father gave her when she was 18, the album was notable for its extensive selection of guest stars, including the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, and Jeff Tweedy.

“It was a time in my life where I felt a new perspective, which was gratitude,” Rosanne notes. “I was also really aware of honouring my own legacy. It was time to stop pushing my parents away, and realise, ‘Hey, I’ve grown up. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know what I’m doing. It’s time to honour the legacy that they gave me.”

Had she tried, when she was younger, to put a distance between her own work and her family’s legacy?

“Sure!” she remarks. “But I don’t think that’s any different from any young person and their parents. You have to push away to find out who you are.”

That independent streak has had a considerable impact on her artistry. Although she’s always loved playing with other musicians, she tells me that, for a long time, she “did not love collaborating on songwriting.”

Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal. Credit: Pamela Springsteen

“I felt very territorial about songwriting,” she resumes. “I didn’t want to co-write very much, until I met my husband John. He and I co-write a lot now, and have ever since we met.

“I’ve let go of some of my territorial feelings about it, and realised that we each provide strengths that the other doesn’t have,” she continues. “We fill in each other’s blanks. He doesn’t really write lyrics, so I can continue to be territorial about my lyrics, and utilise his tremendous gifts as a composer. It’s made me better, and I think it’s made him better. We’ve learned how to collaborate, and not just fight our way through it – but work together in service of something hopefully bigger than ourselves.”

2023 marked the 30th anniversary of that first project they collaborated on, The Wheel. Rosanne got to celebrate by releasing the album on vinyl for the first time, with a remastered deluxe edition released through her and her husband’s independent record label, RumbleStrip Records.

“I didn’t expect to feel the way I felt, when I got the master back,” she says of the anniversary release. “I didn’t think much about it until I actually owned the master again. I was overcome with feeling about that. It was like, ‘I own this record now – this record that has belonged to Sony for 30 years.’ That’s why I wanted to re-released it, because I wanted to treat it as the special moment it was.”

The business side of music has never appealed much to Rosanne, but it was a major part of life in Nashville, a city she called home for many years.

“It is an industry town,” she explains. “There are a lot of protocols that I was not interested in. It’s kind of soul-sucking, to tell you the truth. Not Nashville as a whole – I have plenty of friends there, and there are beautiful artists there. But the whole industry side of it never interested me. It just seemed like it took time away from the actual work.”

She loves the “anonymity” of her current life in New York, she claims, as well as the community of writers she’s found there.

“I’m a New Yorker,” she declares. “I could never live anywhere else. I go down to Nashville every six to eight weeks, because I have grandchildren there. My daughters moved back to Nashville, because they all wanted yards and houses and dogs – and that’s hard to come by in New York City! So I love my family and friends there in the South, but I’m home in New York.”

Having spent much of her life between Memphis, California, Nashville and New York, Rosanne has gained a unique perspective of American politics and culture. She often uses her platform to speak out against inequality and injustice, and is a notable gun-control activist.

“My politics and my social views have always been progressive, from the time I was a kid,” she says now. “That hasn’t changed. I was a very progressive person living in Nashville, so I felt constrained often.”

Where does she think that progressive outlook came from?

“Partly from my dad,” she reckons. “He was always very socially conscious and progressive. He had a huge heart – a philanthropist’s heart. That partly informed me. But he could also hold two thoughts at once. He was opposed to the Vietnam War, and he also went and played for the troops. Those things had a huge impact on me.”

As for her own career, recent years haven’t seen Rosanne, now aged 69, slowing down. In the past year alone, she's appeared on The National’s Laugh Track, T Bone Burnett’s The Other Side, the star-studded live album Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90, and the Lou Reed tribute album The Power Of The Heart. She also tells me that she’s currently writing songs for her 15th album, the follow-up to 2018’s She Remembers Everything.

But when faced with honours and accolades, Rosanne reveals that even she's susceptible to bouts of imposter syndrome.

“I always think, ‘Do I really deserve this?’” she says. “It’s just part of my personality. I try really hard to take it in, and feel incredibly grateful and honoured – but then I go through a list in my head of people who deserve it more.

“Don’t all artists have that, to some degree?” she adds. “Maybe not Picasso, but the rest of us do!”

She also admits that – despite having spent her life surrounded by some of the biggest names in music – she's been, on very special occasions, starstruck by her collaborators.

“I was starstruck over Springsteen, when I did the duet with him, I have to say,” she laughs. “I mean, it’s The Boss!”

She’s just as quick to rave about the newer voices in American music – including Aoife O’Donovan, who’s also performing at the upcoming National Concert Hall show.

Aoife O'Donovan. Credit: Sasha Israel

“Her latest record, All My Friends…" Rosanne enthuses. “Oh my God. I have listened to that album so many times, and I have never gotten through a complete listen without crying. It’s such a beautiful record. It’s about women getting the vote in America – and particularly this one woman [Carrie Chapman], who was a suffragist. It’s delivered with an eye to the future, and an eye to the past at the same time. There’s no polemic in it. It’s so artful and beautiful and moving.

“People like her I’m really inspired by – and people like Molly Tuttle, who’s a prodigy! There are a lot of young people out there who really just blow my mind.”

What else continues to inspire Rosanne these days?

“I still feel like I have things inside me I want to create – that I want to leave in the world,” she reflects. “I’m not young anymore, so that sense of urgency propels me, and keeps me inspired. But the world is still so beautiful to me, and suffering is still so visceral. All of it’s inspiring – the beauty and the pain.”

Rosanne Cash plays the Gala Concert for the Musician Treatment Foundation at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on Thursday, June 13. Tickets are available here.

The 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of The Wheel is out now.