The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will spotlight the nearly 50-year career of Rosanne Cash with a new exhibit, opening December 5, 2024. Rosanne Cash: Time Is a Mirror, which runs through March 2026, will explore Cash’s decades-long career as a singer and songwriter.
After Rosanne made her recording debut on her father Johnny Cash‘s 1974 album, Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me, singing lead on Kris Kristofferson‘s “Broken Freedom Song,” she got her first credit as a songwriter with “Love Has Lost Again,” features on her dad’s 1976 album One Piece At A Time.
Her eponymous 1978 debut marked the beginning of her career, spanning four Grammy awards and her first hit in 1981, “Seven Year Ache,” along with “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party,” “It Hasn’t Happened Yet,” “Blue Moon with Heartache,” “Tennessee Flat Top Box, “No Memories Hangin’ Round,” “Never Be You,” and “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” among others.
In 2021, Cash also became the first female composer to receive the MacDowell Medal, awarded to artists for their contributions to American culture since 1960, and joined past recipients Yoko Ono, David Lynch, Toni Morrison, Stephen Sondheim, and more.
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of The Wheel in 2023, Cash released a deluxe version of her album, featuring the original, remastered, and co-produced by Cash and Leventhal, along with a second live LP, including a rare recording of Cash’s appearance on the Columbia Records Radio Hour and her Austin City Limits performance from July 26, 1993.
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“Rosanne Cash has been called a musical mystic’ and a ‘songwriting time traveler,’” said Kyle Young, chief executive officer for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in a statement. “Her music moves across genres and legacies, looking backward and forward in time. While she works within musical traditions that shaped her, the way she has turned those traditions in fresh and unexpected directions has defined her.”
The Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit will feature artifacts from Cash’s career handpicked by her for the museum, a collection of photographs, videos, instruments, song manuscripts, stage wear, and more.
Within the exhibit are Cash’s handwritten lyrics for “The Real Me,” from her 1987 album, King’s Record Shop, and “Closer Than I Appear,” from her 2003 album, Rules of Travel; a desk Johnny Cash used to write in his small home office; a 1964 Gibson Dove guitar acquired by Cash’s husband John Leventhal in the 1990s, which became her primary instrument for years, including on her 2003 album Rules of Travel; and her Martin OM-28M Rosanne Cash Signature Edition model guitar, a first for 49 signature guitars for the artist.
Cash’s stage outfits will also have their own space with several specific pieces on display, including the red velvet shawl worn in the 1988 music video for her No. 1 hit “It’s a Such a Small World,” written by ex-husband Rodney Crowell for his album Diamonds & Dust; a Carmen Marc Valvo-–designed laser-cut leather duster worn by Cash in 2006; Libertine plaid jacket worn for the cover of her 2009 album, The List; her Alabama Chanin suede jacket, embellished with gold beads, which she wore during her induction into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in 2017; and a Stella McCartney–designed jacket, embellished with embroidered birds and rhinestones, which Cash wore to the 2018 Americana Honors & Awards ceremony.
[RELATED: The Story Behind Johnny Cash’s Last Duet with Daughter Rosanne]
“I never expected to be embraced and honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in this way,” said Cash of the exhibit. “I’m sincerely humbled, as I have so much respect for the mission of the museum and the dedicated team who are so superb in preservation and education.”
Cash continued, “It’s been a thrill to sort through the artifacts of my life and career with the curators and find that these things are valued beyond just my own memories. I have thought about my children a lot while sorting items, listening to songs, and discussing the exhibit, and one of the best things about this honor is anticipating sharing the experience with them. I’m extraordinarily grateful to be given this tribute, and the opportunity to deepen my relationship with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.”
Photo: Pamela Springsteen
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