Blending country music with Americana, folk, pop, rock, and blues, Rosanne Cash is one of the country’s pre-eminent singer-songwriters, releasing 15 albums of extraordinary songs that have earned four Grammy Awards and 12 additional nominations.
She is also the first female composer to receive the prestigious Edward MacDowell Medal—given to one person annually who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts. This evening, Cash performs with her husband, six-time Grammy award-winning guitarist, producer, songwriter, and recording engineer John Leventhal.
Cash is also the author of four books and was recently elected as an Honorary American member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Among Cash’s four books is her best-selling memoir, Composed—which the Chicago Tribune called “one of the best accounts of an American life you’ll likely ever read.” Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Oxford American, The Nation, and many more print and online publications. Her most recent book, Bird on a Blade (2018), was published by University of Texas Press, combining images by acclaimed artist Dan Rizzie with Cash’s lyrics.
In addition to regular touring, Cash has partnered in programming collaborations with Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, SFJAZZ, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Library of Congress. She served as artist-in-residence at New York University and in 2018 and 2023 she was a resident artistic director at SFJAZZ.
Along with many other honors and awards, Cash received the 2021 Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded since 1960 to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture. She is the first female composer to receive this prestigious honor. “I consider artists to be in the service industry; the premier service industry for the heart and soul,” shares Cash. “I am curious to a pathological degree and the Sword of Time hangs over me, and those two things—curiosity and the hourglass—make me feel more urgent than ever to connect, to find community, and to create. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks, it only matters that what is unsaid and what is unseen is given form and has a voice.”
In 2023, Cash and her husband, six-time Grammy award-winning guitarist John Leventhal—and Cash’s songwriting, producing, and performing partner—launched a new record label, RumbleStrip Records, to reexamine and rerelease Cash’s early period recordings originally on Columbia/Sony Music. A 30th anniversary remastered edition of the Cash/Leventhal produced album The Wheel was the inaugural release followed by John Leventhal’s very first solo album entitled Rumble Strip in late January 2024.
John Leventhal
John Leventhal is a six-time Grammy Award-winning musician, producer, songwriter, and recording engineer who has produced albums for William Bell, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Michelle Branch, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Shawn Colvin, Sarah Jarosz, Jim Lauderdale, Joan Osborne, Loudon Wainwright III, and many others. He produced and co-wrote Cash's three-time Grammy Award-winning The River And The Thread (2014), and earned Grammy Awards for his work with WIlliam Bell, Sarah Jarosz, and Shawn Colvin, including Record and Song Of The Year for producing and co-writing her hit, Sunny Came Home (1997).