New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Missing Piece Group) On Saturday, November 23, the
State of Arkansas and The Old
State House Museum will honor
Rosanne Cash for her contributions to the development of Arkansas history and culture. The GRAMMY-winning artist has been working with Arkansas
State University and the
National Trust for Historic Preservation to facilitate restoration of the
Johnny Cash Boyhood Home in Dyess, AR. She will receive The Speaker of the House Award at a ceremony that will take place at the museum on Saturday afternoon.
That night, Cash will play a sold-out concert at the Oxford American's new venue, South on Main, which is located in
Little Rock, AR. The special evening is a celebration of the launch of the Oxford American's Southern
Music Issue - available beginning December 2 - which will feature a 6,000-word essay by Cash on Tennessee. Together with longtime partner and collaborator John Leventhal, she will perform material from throughout her career and debut songs from her new album, The River & The Thread, which will be released on January 14, 2014 by Blue Note Records. The River & The Thread follows 2009's The List, which was nominated for two GRAMMY Awards.
Cash is featured in the performance-filled documentary "NASHVILLE 2.0: The Rise of Americana," which premieres Friday, November 22, at 9:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) as part of the 2013 PBS Arts Fall Festival. The hour-long film kicks off the "PBS Americana
Music Weekend" and is paired with "ACL Presents: Americana
Music Festival 2013," which airs November 23 on PBS in select markets (check local listings for broadcast dates and times). This special episode of PBS' iconic Austin City Limits (ACL) series captures highlights from the 2013 Americana
Music Association Honors & Awards, where Cash presented the Album of the Year award (an honor she received for The List in 2010), and performed in the finale, "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight."
Yesterday Cash posted the cover for The River & The Thread on Instagram, revealing a piece of it at a time, so fans could see it come together like a puzzle. The image was shot on the Tallahatchie Bridge in Money, MS. As the haunting album closer "Money Road" acknowledges, it's a spot where the roots of music and revolution intersect, where sorrow and hope are entwined. Young Emmett Till was murdered nearby - an act that ignited the Civil Rights movement nearly sixty years ago. The final resting place of blues icon Robert Johnson, whose influence still reverberates through popular music, is also not far from the Tallahatchie Bridge. It's a place that exerted an inexorable pull on Cash as she embarked on the musical journal through the American South that The River & The Thread documents.
Cash wrote the album's 11 original songs with John Leventhal, who also served as producer, arranger and guitarist. The pair were joined in the studio by a cast of friends and fellow musicians who also have a deep affection for and/or roots in the South, including Cory Chisel, Rodney Crowell (who also co-wrote one song), Amy Helm, Kris Kristofferson,
Allison Moorer, John Prine, Derek Trucks, John Paul White (The Civil Wars),
Tony Joe White and Gabe Witcher (The Punch Brothers.) Cash discusses The River & The Thread in a new Garden and Gun feature, posted here today.
The River & The Thread will be available in standard, deluxe and vinyl formats and can be pre-ordered now on Amazon.com. The limited edition deluxe version comes as a 36-page hard cover book filled with photos and mementos from Rosanne's musical journey. It contains three bonus studio tracks not included on the standard edition: covers of Townes Van Zandt's "Two Girls" and
Jesse Winchester's "Biloxi" and the Cash/Leventhal original "Your Southern Heart."
Cash will begin a three-day residency at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC on December 5. Born in
Memphis and raised in California, she has recorded fifteen albums, including 1981's
Seven Year Ache and 1987's King's Record Shop - both certified Gold. Rosanne has charted 21 Top 40 country singles, 11 of which climbed to No. 1. She has received 12 GRAMMY nominations, winning in 1985. Cash has also published four books, including her 2010 bestselling memoir, Composed, which The
Chicago Tribune hailed as "one of the best accounts of an American life you will likely ever read." Her essays and fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone and New York magazine, among others.
