Unless you’ve spent the last 50 years cryogenically frozen in deep space, you may have heard of Rosanne Cash‘s father, Johnny Cash. When Rosanne locked in on becoming a successful country singer/songwriter, she had a formidable set of footsteps to follow. But she isn’t one to duck a challenge. Twenty of her singles cracked the top 20 in the country charts from 1979 to 1990, with 11 reaching the number-one spot. Her new album, The List (out next week on EMI/Manhattan), is a terrific reworking of country classics, handpicked from a list of indispensable songs her dad made for her 36 years ago. Having Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy and Rufus Wainwright appear as guest artists on the record is a nice fit. Rosanne will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week long. Read our Q&A with her.
Cash: Colum McCann and I have a mutual friend, Wesley Stace (a.k.a. John Wesley Harding). Wes is a brilliant songwriter, musician and author, and he attracts a lot of bright lights to himself. He does this semi-regular, wild show called Cabinet Of Wonders, and he sets it up like a post-modern, surrealist version of vaudeville. I met Colum when we both did a Cabinet Of Wonders show at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. I didn’t know Colum’s work, but he read from his novel Dancer that night, and I was mesmerized. I talked to him after the show and told him how much I loved what he had read, and he thrust his only copy into my hand. I went home that night and started reading it and didn’t put it down until I was finished a few days later. Dancer is a fictionalized biography of great ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, and the pastiche McCann creates of his life—and his passions, his debauchery and artistry—makes a permanent imprint. It is a magnificent book. I think Colum is the rightful heir of James Joyce, and maybe Proust, and maybe Tolstoy. I’ll never forget this book, and it inspired me to buy the true biographies of Nureyev, none of which has grabbed me like Dancer.
