November 28, 2023 • 37 mins
Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash celebrates the 30th Anniversary of her landmark album “The Wheel” with the release of a remastered version on her new label, RumbleStrip Records. The daughter of legend Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash began her career singing backup for her father, but soon made her own indelible mark on the music world, with 11 number one country songs, two gold records and four Grammys. She’s also an essayist and author of four books, including her best-selling memoir, “Composed.” Cash speaks with Alec Baldwin about starting out as a young woman in the industry in the 70s, how she reclaimed her family’s story through writing and how to remain faithful to herself in her work.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You ad suck.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
You just bond n face down and memory feel it
all right? So who does your past belong to today?
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Baby?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
You'll say nothing when you're.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Feeling this way.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's singer songwriter Roseanne Cash singing seven Year eight off
the nineteen eighty one album of the same name. Cash
has certainly made her mark in the musical world eleven
number one country songs, twenty one top forty country singles,
two Gold records, and four Grammys, and she doesn't stop
(00:46):
at songwriting. She is also an essayist and author of
several books, including her best selling memoir Composed Roseanne Cash
began her career in music singing back up for one
of the most important country music artists of all time,
her father, Johnny Cash. Since then, Cash has enjoyed an
(01:08):
illustrious career of her own that spans four decades. She
released her first album, the self titled Roseanne Cash, in
nineteen seventy eight. I wanted to know what it was
like for a young woman starting out in the music
business at that time.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You know that album I made in seventy eight I
made in Germany for a European label. I think I
was dipping my toe in the water to see if
this was actually how I wanted to live my life.
Because I thought of myself as a songwriter, I thought
I would write songs for other people. I was shy,
I didn't have the need for attention to be a performer,
(01:47):
and I didn't want to invite comparisons with my dad,
and so I thought being a songwriter as a nobook profession,
that's what I want to do. And I was already
doing it for early teens. But Ariela heard my songs
and they said, you know, would you make a record
for us. It took me a while to decide, but
(02:09):
I did, and then I got signed to Columbia in
the States, and then you know, here we are today.
But to answer your question, the climate for women then,
unfortunately has not changed that much. Really, it's still very
much a boys club. Back then, the programmers radio programmers
would say, oh, we can't put two women back to
back on the radio. They still say that. I think
(02:32):
maybe what has changed is they don't overtly put their
hand on your ass when you walk into the really
you know the radio station, but it still happens.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
One thing I would expect was that there was a
time in the sixties and seventies when they were like,
you know, hey, we want to fluff you up for
this album cover. We need you to pop one more
button and do this and do this, and they want
just sex up everything to sell the record.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Oh god, yes, So there was a lot of that
back then.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Okay, So I went into a marketing meeting, my first
marketing meeting for my first US album, and it was
all men in the meeting. I was, you know, twenty
three years old, and I walked in and sat down
and straight out the head of the label said, okay,
so our main marketing goal is to make you fuckable
(03:24):
in front of everybody. To me, twenty three year.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Old girl, you believe that?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And I was so flustered, you know, I didn't know
how to push back. I was just like, but I'm
not going to do that. And actually it had the
reverse effect on me. I didn't show skin. I didn't
like to show skin. I didn't like to play that
game at all. I thought, well, I'm a good songwriter,
I'm good enough without that. It was hubris then, because
(03:49):
you know, I wasn't great then I've gotten better.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now When you write songs, I want to see how
this has changed over the arc of time, because you've
written many albums for many years. If the self titled
album is seventy eight she remembers everything is in twenty eighteen,
so that's a forty year gap. And what I'm wondering
is who do you show your songs too? Has that
(04:13):
changed when you were younger, When you were a younger
woman writing songs, who would you take it to and say,
give me your feedback on my song?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
And was it your family?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Sometimes my dad, Yeah, I trusted him. I was very
very careful about who I played my songs to, and
I didn't like playing songs to people before they were finished.
I mean I was because I was really territorial, and
like I said, I had some hubers about myself as
a songwriter. I didn't want interference. I didn't want to
get distracted by other people's opinions. But there were really
(04:47):
good songwriters I trusted who I would play the songs
to to get feedback after I had finished. And that's
still the case mostly now for my husband John, who
I work with a lot who's produced my records. We
co write a lot. He's a tremendous musician and I
trust him.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Where did you and he meet?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
My first husband introduced us and I said to myself,
Oh my god, my life is getting it so complicated.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And Crowell your first husband, you did a lot of
recordings with him as well.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
He produced you as well. Correct?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I did you know? There's something about working with your
spouse if you find a rhythm and a groove and
you can stop bringing your personal life into every interaction
and fighting. There's something capital or romantic about that. Excepting
and create. Yeah, being created.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I always wanted to work with my wife and do
some silly TV show just to work with my wife.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
I didn't really care about what it was. To a degree,
Oh do it?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Do it?
Speaker 5 (05:48):
I thought about it. We tried.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But so Rodney Crowell your first husband, John Leventhal your
current husband. How does that change over time in terms
of what you rely on producers for? There was this
I always wondered for me, who's a complete novice? Like
does Quincy Jones walk into the studio and say to
Michael Jackson sing it this way? Is there somebody who
tells you what to do what they want you to.
(06:11):
Try to do that pushes you.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
That would be a little blunt and probably put me off,
But I know what you mean. But yet they push.
I mean I think that Rodney when I was young,
you know, we were working together. I think he had
more confidence in my voice than I did, and he
kept pushing, you know, do it this way, try it
this way, you can do this. You know, what would
you think about this? And even to the point of
(06:36):
you know, method acting, like what's the spirit behind this,
what's the memory behind this, what's the feeling behind this,
what's the truth of this? Exactly? With John he pushes
me even more and sometimes I just say, I'm not
a session singer. Get someone who will obey you, because
that's not me. But it's always in the service of
(06:59):
doing something good together.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Right, you talk about method acting and the truth of something.
There are sections of your biography and periods of your life.
Will you go to Vanderbilt? How long were you at Vanderbilt?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
A year? Was an incredibly lonely experienced.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Oh really, and you had gone there to study what.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I'm double majored in English and drama. I had a
fabulous English professor Walter Sullivan, who was kind of a legendary.
I learned a lot from him, but I was a
little older because I had gone to a year of
college elsewhere, moved to London for six months, came back.
So I was twenty years old as a sophomore. And
it made a difference at that age, and I didn't
(07:40):
have any friends, and so you enjoy this. I went
to the Lee Strasburg Institute and Lee was still teaching
there and I audited his classes. He was so frightening,
did you know, Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yes, he would give a lecture when I went there.
I went there seventy nine through eighty that one year
through NYU. I went through NYU and he gave a
lecture periodically and he was mentioning something about the manipulation
of the lobes of the brain. And I walked up
to him and he was grasping, and he was pretty old,
(08:15):
and I walked up to him. And I don't know
why I did this, but I walked up to him
and I said, is the word you were looking for? Phrenology?
And I didn't even know what I was talking about.
And he looked at him and he went, no, he
like bomped me. Now he snapped, and I thought, well,
that's my Lee Strasburg story I'm going to tell for
the rest of my career.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I studied with a man named Dominic Defasio.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
What year, Oh, that was the year before I.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Made the first record, so that was seventy seven, and
I audited Lee's classes and sat at the back because
he was so terrifying, and he would do these psychological
games with the students. I'm sure you saw this, where
he would one week spend the entire time tearing somebody's
performance down and having her redo it, and then coming
(09:04):
the next week when she came in and did it again,
he would just go very nice and walk away like
so that she was always off guard.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Right As a Strasburg technique, Yeah, was it?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Really?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
When I went to Strasburg, there was one teacher who
I've since become kind of friendly with.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
But if somebody would do a scene and it'd.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Be a long pause, a very arid pause, you know,
like tumbleweeds are blowing across the stage, and this guy
would look at the kid and go, why'd you bother?
Speaker 5 (09:32):
That's all he'd say.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh my god, I mean they really hurt people's feelings.
But now, when you went to Vanderbilt for a year
and it only lasted the year, you said you were lonely,
you just so were you running away from something? Did
you say yourself, I don't want a music career. I
don't want to do this anymore. Now, writing music is
one thing, Loving music and being an artist is one thing,
(09:55):
as you know, but a career and something.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Is completely different.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Absolutely, And did.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
You say you didn't want a career in that anymore?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
The career part was troubling me, definitely. But I had
been living in London and I'd got my heart broken.
I moved to London and I started seeing myself as
an expatriot and I didn't want to come back and
I was only twenty and my dad, after six months there,
(10:23):
he said you have to come back now.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And now why did he say that?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Because I think he saw that he would lose me
to the family, and he was right. I was going
to just disappear.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So your father was instrumental in getting you to come home,
not only instrumental.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It was because of him that I came home. That's
when I went to Vanderbilt.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
But what was the impetus for you with acting.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well, I loved drama. You know, I majored in drama
and English in college. I loved plays. I loved the
theater so much. And I thought, well, maybe, you know,
this is a way I could work out this enormously
powerful urge to create in myself. Was writing songs, but
I thought, well, maybe this is a forum. And then
(11:08):
I realized very quickly I did not want to be
an actor.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Well acting, it's funny because when I look at your dad,
I don't have a lot of I don't want to
push too far into the whole well worn talk about
your father, who I adored. I mean your father, I
mean I was a little boy boy named Sue sixty nine.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
I'm eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I'm on Long Island and I'm there with my little
transistor radio listening to build me up, Buttercup. I'm listening
to Disraeli Gears from Cream and I'm listening to a
boy named Sue from Johnny Cash, and I'm laughing my
ass off. This guy is the funniest guy. And when
you listen to him in that song, and of course
(11:47):
I read that he did several films and a lot
of TV. He said like a guy that was having
a good time and laughing and having a ball. He
was like a joyous guy, and I've seen depictions of
him where that seems to be missing. He was kind
of a fun loving guy. He wasn't just a tough guy,
you know what I mean? Was he somebody you think
might have had more of a career as an actor
(12:07):
if he wanted to.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You just said a lot here. That captured my attention
and makes me think about my dad and how he
truly was. He had a profound wound at his center.
He grew up in really difficult circumstances with an abusive father,
and he lost his brother who was his hero, when
he was twelve years old, and that suffering created in
(12:34):
him the most deepest empathy and compassion for those who suffer,
and much of his work came out of that and
from our celtic melancholy roots. At the same time, he
was joyish. He loved babies, he loved playing practical jokes,
He loved hanging out with kids and being a kid himself.
(12:55):
So you know, he was the yin and yang to
the extreme of both of those things.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, you see him his looks, he's so striking. He's
so powerful. I mean, I'm not talking about as a musician,
which that's obvious what I'm seeing. I thought to myself,
this guy could have been a great movie store if
he really had just thrown himself in that direction, he
could have been a great actor.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
You know, do you agree?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Do you know what the first film we moved to California.
I was born in Memphis. We moved to California because
he when I was three years old, because he got
offered a film and he thought, you know, as a manager,
is like, this would be a great opportunity for you
to go to this direction. The film was called Door
to Door Maniac.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
Oh great, and he played the title role. That's enough
to cure you about debt.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Then he did a gunfight with Kirk Douglas and he
did several things and he really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, when you get the call you're working with your dad?
When does the moment come when you were invited to
come and sing back up?
Speaker 5 (13:59):
And then you're going to do it? So who brings
that information to you? Who tells you?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Dad?
Speaker 5 (14:03):
He does?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, he said, why don't you girls? I was out
with my stepsister or June's daughter. Why don't you girls
just come out on the last song and just sing
back up on you know, willis Circle being broken or whatever?
It was, Okay, we go out, we're terrified and shaking.
And then I was writing songs, you know, and then
he said, well, why don't you come out and do
one of your songs, And that's how it started. I
(14:28):
remember doing this in Prague when it was still behind
the Iron Curtain, played twenty thousand people. I remember going
out and singing a couple of songs in that show.
That was an experience.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Is it fair to say at all that because it's
easy when you have a father who's your father to
overlook the contributions of your mother in terms of your
career as well.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Was your mother influential in the work you did.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's a really good question, and not many people ask it.
My mother was so private and it hated the glare
of fame. Hated it was always afraid we kids were
going to be kidnapped because dad was so famous, you know.
She was a little tortured by it. And when I
went started writing songs and performing, oh my god, she
(15:16):
was terrified, you know, because her template was you get famous,
and then you get divorced and you get on drugs
and it's a horrible life. And also she taught me discipline.
You know, the discipline I have as a writer and
as a mother in my house is because of her.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Now, when your father gets remarried and you talked about
you and your stepsister getting into the biz, June's daughter
was June someone who had any kind of influence on you,
was she a kind and nurturing woman.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
She had a tremendous influence on me. She was basically crazy, right,
And she had been on stage virtually her entire life
since early child. So being on stage there was no
glamour to it. It was just a job. It was
just part of life, like you know, anything like having breakfast.
(16:09):
She could be having a conversation with you standing in
the wings. Hear her cue walk on stage as she's
still talking over her shoulder. Do her gig come off,
pick up the conversation right where she left it, you know,
and her bag of her shoes and her bag of
girdles and her bag of makeup in the dressing room
(16:30):
and then just gossip, gossip, gossip with their sisters and
then go out and do the show. It was. There
was no separation between performance and life for her. But
what I learned from her is just the assumption of
a certain kind of power and authenticity when you were performing.
She told me the greatest story. She was on one
(16:51):
of those package tours in the South back then in
the fifties and sixties, they had package stores of a
lot of country acts, and you would they would travel
around together and do these shows, multi artist shows. Well,
they're in one place in West Virginia or someplace, and
the banjo player for the band that was supposed to
go on before her, before the Carter family didn't show up.
(17:16):
So the lead singer in the band is freaking out.
He's going does anybody play the banjo? Does anybody play
the banjo? And June says, I play the banjo, and
she walks out and she does the show with them,
plays the banjo through it. And she told me the story,
and she said, in Honey, I had never played the
banjo in my life.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
My god, the nerve.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, I said, how did you do that? She said, well, Honey,
when I walked on stage, I knew how to play
the banjo. That has stayed with me. My whole life's
so fun. When you walk on stage, you'll.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Know Roseanne Cash. If you enjoy conversations with brilliant female
singer songwriters, check on my episode with Carly Simon. A
little over fifty years ago, a show at the Troubadour
changed her life.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Three of us rehearsed in New York for three days,
and then we went out to LA And by that
time I had opened for Cats Team open for katste
something in the sixth nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
April sixth, Yes, and that changed things for you.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
That was That was a convincing night. We played two
shows every night and four shows on the weekend. I
met all kinds of people. It was like the lights
you were shining on me.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
I'll you're it.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
I couldn't say no at that point. And I and
even though I was suffering tremendus stage fright, I had
various things that tricked me out of being afraid.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
To hear more of my conversation with Carly Simon go
to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, Roseanne
Cash tells us about the Broadway Bound musical that she
spent years writing and what that work means.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
To her I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's
the Thing and lou.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
And the Frame in all Songs and Louie And.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
That is the newly remastered version of The Wheel, the
title track from Roseanne Cash's nineteen ninety three album. I
wanted to know what led Cash to re release the landmark.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Recording, so my album, The Wheel. It's the thirtieth anniversary.
I just got my master's back from Sony after thirty years.
There was a thirty year reversion claw us, and I
didn't expect how that would feel to own my master
to this album, and it was like a spiritual experience, like, Wow,
(20:10):
this is mine. It's not part of a multinational corporation anymore.
And it had never been released on vinyl. In ninety three,
nobody was pressing vinyl, and so John and I started
a record label, Rumble Strip Records, and the first release
is going to be this remastered thirtieth anniversary edition of
(20:31):
The Wheel. I wrote new liner notes for it, double
vinyl with a live performance from ninety three. And I
don't generally like looking back at my old work. You know,
I'm still really excited about what's coming up. But I
feel like this was a watershed moment in my life.
It's the first album John and I made together. We
(20:53):
fell in love making that record, ended up getting married.
And the songs are intense. They're about transformation and I'm
proud of it. And some of it sounds dated. Some
might go, oh my god, I wish I had sung
that better, and yet it captured a real moment and time,
like you said, the truth, and I'm proud to be
(21:14):
re releasing it for people.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Who don't know. One assumes that a lot of that
is on a technical side. They're going to sweeten the
sound and they're going to get computers in there to
make it sound even better than ever. Is that what
you do? Do you other than the liner notes and
so forth? Do you really hand this over to somebody
to enhance the sound technically and there's not much else
for you to do.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
No, I wouldn't say enhance as much as just in remastering.
You know, they might modernize it in some way, like
there might be too much highs on one track that
they just bring down slightly. So it's not so much
enhancement as just kind of bringing it to the future
to the present rather right.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
When you record and you sing.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I mean, I don't mean to sound weirdly technically here,
but do you sit on a steward?
Speaker 5 (22:00):
Do you feel you have to stand in order to sing?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I like weirdly technical questions. By the way, no I
stand what I'm singing. I don't like disquish my diaphragm.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You don't. And who did you have any training as
a singer? Do you have any train you?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I did. I studied with a few people. And do
you know technical stuff? Breath control, vibrato, you know, preserving energy,
opening your chest, placement in the either the palette or
the back of the throat for different tones, you know,
really technical.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
Stuff in New York, La London? Where New York? In
New York, m H. I took singing lessons.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Once I was at a party and Cameron McIntosh was there,
and Cameron McIntosh said to me, mister Baldwin, I'm producing
a Broadway musical based on the Witches of Eastwick, and
I would like you to come in and meet with
my producers and my designers and so forth, and my
vocal people. And have you considered playing the role of
(22:59):
the lead that Jack Nicholson assayed in the film. We're
in front of all these people at this big event,
and I said, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
I don't sing.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
He said, nonsense, mister Boldwin. He said, you can be
trained to sing. He said, anyone can sing with the
proper training. He said, I want you to come and
meet my man, John Lyons. I want you to come
and speak to John, and he's going to work with you.
I said, you don't understand, man. I mean, I really
can't sing. I'd love to have the soul of a singer,
but my voice is just in shreds. It's like sandpaper.
He said, Visa Bowen please. He was almost looking at
(23:29):
me like, I'm Cameron Macintosh, you idiot. I wouldn't waste
my time or yours with this suggestion of I don't
think it was possible. And he said, please go see John.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Thank you. So I go. We go somewhere near the
Antsnia you.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Like a lot of dance classes and rehearsal studios, and
I go to this guy's apartment. He's got the piano
there and we sing. He goes, I want you to
prepare two songs, something up tempo and something like a ballad,
and ira I sing, Come fly with me the Frank
sit outter, So come fly with me. And I said,
come fly with me, but and I sing this song
and he goes, let's talk now. I want you to
do this and try to try to do this. And I,
(24:03):
after like my fourth or fifth round of doing singing
the song, he stops. He goes, mister Bolwen, you're correct.
You can't sing. Look my god, it said. That was
like they shot me and wrapped me in plastic like
in the Sopranos and threw me.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
In the ocean. Like my career was over, was dead.
It was dead dead.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I'm impressed you to try it. One one singing teacher
I had or one voice. He was actually a voice
vocal therapist because I had polyps a couple of times
and lost my voice and had to go on vocal
rest for months and steroids and blah blah blah, and
at the end, you know, your voice has kind of
fallen apart at the end of having polyps and has
(24:47):
to be literally rebuilt. And so Bill Riley, who's a
big guy in town. He he helped me rebuild my voice.
And Shirley Tennyson also helped me rebuild my voice. And
he told me that he could tell if someone could
sing by looking at their facial structure. Really, yeah, I
(25:08):
think he meant something about where the cheekbones are sitting
or anchored.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Like are the baffles and the chambers always? Are they there?
Are they in there?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Maybe? But it's also about looking at the well of
the larynx too. He told me that Pavarotti had a
larynx like the well inside where his vocal cords are
looked like no one else's that had ever been, you know,
whatever they put down there to look at him.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Now, I'm told you're working on a musical.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
A musical.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Yeah, whose idea was that?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It was John Widman who wrote Assassins. He wrote the
book for Assassins.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Rather my God, I worship John Widman, so do I
I think Assassins is. I mean, Assassins is something I
can never stop listening to, just for the lyrics.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
John is so special. Yeah. Well Sondheim's so special too,
a bit.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
Yeah, the two of them together are special.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, no kidding. So he wrote the book for the
musical I'm doing, which is Norma Ray. So I'm the lyricist.
John Lebenthal's the composer. John Wibman's the book writer, and
we've been working on it about six years. We've had
two workshops and some rewrites, and we have a theater interested.
(26:27):
So I'm hoping fall twenty twenty four. I hope we'll
get it staged.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Why did that material appeal to you? I mean, it
was a hit movie, but why beyond that?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Well, several levels. It's set in North Carolina, So the
idea of bringing this kind of genre bending Appellationian Sondheimish
musical hybrid together was a fascinating idea. And I got
to say John lebenthalt Man, he knocked it out of
the park. It's the music is so great, and also
(26:59):
for me as lyricist writing and the voice of other
characters that was such a thrill, such a challenge. And
also the story. You know, it's like a union organizing,
which is so timely, but also at the center of
this this woman's transformation through helping her community, also so timely.
(27:20):
So it kind of checked all the boxes. In the
first two years I said, I'm never doing this again.
I hate this, And in the last the last four years,
I said, I absolutely love it.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
What was daunting for you?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Well, writing in the voice of characters who I didn't
have any experience with, who I didn't know. You know,
an older man working in a textile mill in North
Carolina in the seventies. How do I find his voice
and his sense of poetry? It's not mine, you know?
But who is he that? And that ended up being
(27:56):
really I don't know. It touches your empathy going from
there into their sense of poetry and their experience. It's
been uplifting for me.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
How familiar were we with the film? Did you have
to go back and watch the film or did you
not want to watch the film?
Speaker 5 (28:12):
Norma Ray?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yes, No, I was familiar with the film already, but yes,
I went back and watched it again. Not only that,
I did some research about textile mills in the South
and what happened to them, and race relations in the
South in the mills and union organizing, and it was fascinating.
I have a friend in Alabama who took over an
(28:35):
abandoned textile mill to create her own bespoke factory of
handmade items of handmade clothing and hired all of these
women who had worked at the textile mills and lost
their jobs after NAFTA, and so her mission was kind
of in my mind thinking about all of this, and
you know, and the sadness of the guy coming down
(28:57):
from New York to help me organize the union and
it happening, and then the textile mills all close later on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Well when you see this is my opinion, but when
you see dramas or musicals, whatever, let's stick to dramas
that are on stage that are adapted to film, whether
it's a cat or hut and roof or streetcar or
things like that.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
That seems less dicey.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You know, you're going to go open it up, and
you're going to put the camera where you want to,
when you're going to bring all the cinematics that you
want to bring to it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I mean, I think that in general, it's better when
it goes with stage discreen than the reverse and on
Broadway a lot now or you know, are these disneyfications
of films and stuff, which is, you know, it's like
a ride at an amusement park or something. And I
get the appeal of that, but I like something that's
taken seriously. I don't know why I was thinking about
(29:52):
the dresser when you were talking about that. God, oh
my god, and they kept it as if it's a
stage play, you know, with Anthony Hopkins and Ian mccollins.
It was so wonderful.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
I can't believe you mentioned that, because I just did
a reading of that play the other day.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Did you really are you going to do it?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Well, A group of us were on Long Island, some
friends of mine who live out there out east, and
we decided we just wanted to read a play, and
we had a couple of ideas and this was one
of them. So we did a reading a bunch of
us and it was really a thrill, you know. I mean,
it's not much different from the movie, but there's another
situation where, I mean, I'm somebody who's.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
Not immune to being overwhelmed by other people's work.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Me too, And I must say that there are a
few things in cinema that I find more powerful and
more overwhelming than Finny in that movie. But when you
do something it's like, I'm sure you're the same way
with Norma Ray. You got to realize you're doing it
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Absolutely, But it's that way for everything every record I make.
If I get out of myself and try to go
what will please people, it's death. You know, it just
destroyed and takes all the life out of it if
you try to copy the marketplace or try to please
too much. I think Dylan said that once that people
pleasing was death to an artist, and I believe it.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
Self consciousness is death to an artist death.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I believe yes, self consciousness. That's even a better way
to see it.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Singer songwriter Roseanne Cash, if you're enjoying this episode, don't
keep it to yourself. Tell a friend and be sure
to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. When we return, Roseanne Cash
shares how writing her memoir helped reclaim her family story
(31:43):
and her own.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
See yes stands.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
True Even when.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing in.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
The shadows, link and burn away the lasts.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
They will fly me live and jel to a place
where I can risk when this begins, I'll let you.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
September.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
This is Roseanne Cash duetting with her father, Johnny Cash
on September when it comes off her two thousand and
three album Rules of Travel.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Music.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Talent seems to be passed down among the Cashes. Roseanne
Cash has five children, three with her first husband, one
with her second, and a stepchild. Some have even followed
her into the family business. I wanted to know how
Cash managed going on the road when she was raising
her children.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It was less important than raising the babies. I have
to say, I toured less than everyone else around me,
and it was a constant source of, you know, angst
for my manager, because I just I have a really
healthy alarm system about what's too much and what's not enough,
you know, as far as kids, as far as my
private life and being home. And I have no illusions
(33:43):
about the glamor of the life I lead to know.
I mean, I saw that first hand with my dad.
It's like, it's hard work, it's not glamorous. And I
wanted to be there for the parent teacher meetings and
the play.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So I made sure I was now two more things
in the time we have left. So you've written a
memoir correct, yes? And what was that process like for
you As a creative person.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I love writing, or, as Lillian Hellman said, I love
having written. My family story and my own story had
been co opted by the public in such perverse and
diverse ways over so many decades that I finally thought,
if I don't tell my story, at least plant my
(34:34):
flag and tell my story, then it will just keep
getting co opted. And even if it is, at least
I've said it. So that's why I wrote a memoir.
I thought I was too young to write a memoir
in twenty ten, but you know, I could write a
second volume. And I constructed it in a way like
Bob Dylan's Chronicles in that it wasn't completely chronological. That
(34:57):
it was about reappearing patterns of my life and how
songs were attached to them and anchored those different eras
and patterns in my life. And you know, it was
a self organizing principle too. I realized many things about
my life that I hadn't by writing about it.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Do you listen to much contemporary music right now? I
do you do.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I got obsessed with this Billie Eilish song she wrote
for Barbie. Oh my God, one of the most beautiful
songs I've heard this year.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Oh wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
And my son is a record producer. He's almost twenty five.
He produces a lot of indie bands and indie artists.
You know, he's in Brooklyn, and so I hear some
of the people that he's producing, and I'm interested in them.
And I love kids, I do. I love young people
me too.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, you know my sense of your career, of your work.
You're writing this Normal Ray thing, and you talk about
possibly another volume of something by I mean, I'm saying
this because I truly believe this, you know. I mean,
I always find I was blown away when Springsteen went
on Broadway.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I loved that show, loved.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
It, and one was something you could do, that kind
of show. And we'll keep our eyes peeled for Normal Ray.
That sounds thrilling to me. Thank you, and how lucky
they are to have you.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Thanks Alec. It's so good to speak to you finally,
because I have admired you for so long that it
was such a joy to get to speak with you.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
My thanks to Roseanne Cash. Catcher at City Winery in
New York City on November twenty eighth and twenty ninth,
touring in support of the thirtieth anniversary of The Wheel.
You can find additional tour dates at Roseannecash dot com.
I'll leave you with Roseanne Cash's Blue Moon with Heartache
(36:53):
from the nineteen eighty one album seven year ag I'm
Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by
my Heart Radio. What would I.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
To be a time and in your eyes again? What
would I to bring back those old child? What did
I say.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Make your glass turn off this way? Maybe I'll school
awaits today.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Baby, On to school away, baby,
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You ad suck.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
You just bond n face down and memory feel it
all right? So who does your past belong to today?
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Baby?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
You'll say nothing when you're.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Feeling this way.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's singer songwriter Roseanne Cash singing seven Year eight off
the nineteen eighty one album of the same name. Cash
has certainly made her mark in the musical world eleven
number one country songs, twenty one top forty country singles,
two Gold records, and four Grammys, and she doesn't stop
(00:46):
at songwriting. She is also an essayist and author of
several books, including her best selling memoir Composed Roseanne Cash
began her career in music singing back up for one
of the most important country music artists of all time,
her father, Johnny Cash. Since then, Cash has enjoyed an
(01:08):
illustrious career of her own that spans four decades. She
released her first album, the self titled Roseanne Cash, in
nineteen seventy eight. I wanted to know what it was
like for a young woman starting out in the music
business at that time.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You know that album I made in seventy eight I
made in Germany for a European label. I think I
was dipping my toe in the water to see if
this was actually how I wanted to live my life.
Because I thought of myself as a songwriter, I thought
I would write songs for other people. I was shy,
I didn't have the need for attention to be a performer,
(01:47):
and I didn't want to invite comparisons with my dad,
and so I thought being a songwriter as a nobook profession,
that's what I want to do. And I was already
doing it for early teens. But Ariela heard my songs
and they said, you know, would you make a record
for us. It took me a while to decide, but
(02:09):
I did, and then I got signed to Columbia in
the States, and then you know, here we are today.
But to answer your question, the climate for women then,
unfortunately has not changed that much. Really, it's still very
much a boys club. Back then, the programmers radio programmers
would say, oh, we can't put two women back to
back on the radio. They still say that. I think
(02:32):
maybe what has changed is they don't overtly put their
hand on your ass when you walk into the really
you know the radio station, but it still happens.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
One thing I would expect was that there was a
time in the sixties and seventies when they were like,
you know, hey, we want to fluff you up for
this album cover. We need you to pop one more
button and do this and do this, and they want
just sex up everything to sell the record.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Oh god, yes, So there was a lot of that
back then.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Okay, So I went into a marketing meeting, my first
marketing meeting for my first US album, and it was
all men in the meeting. I was, you know, twenty
three years old, and I walked in and sat down
and straight out the head of the label said, okay,
so our main marketing goal is to make you fuckable
(03:24):
in front of everybody. To me, twenty three year.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Old girl, you believe that?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And I was so flustered, you know, I didn't know
how to push back. I was just like, but I'm
not going to do that. And actually it had the
reverse effect on me. I didn't show skin. I didn't
like to show skin. I didn't like to play that
game at all. I thought, well, I'm a good songwriter,
I'm good enough without that. It was hubris then, because
(03:49):
you know, I wasn't great then I've gotten better.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now When you write songs, I want to see how
this has changed over the arc of time, because you've
written many albums for many years. If the self titled
album is seventy eight she remembers everything is in twenty eighteen,
so that's a forty year gap. And what I'm wondering
is who do you show your songs too? Has that
(04:13):
changed when you were younger, When you were a younger
woman writing songs, who would you take it to and say,
give me your feedback on my song?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
And was it your family?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Sometimes my dad, Yeah, I trusted him. I was very
very careful about who I played my songs to, and
I didn't like playing songs to people before they were finished.
I mean I was because I was really territorial, and
like I said, I had some hubers about myself as
a songwriter. I didn't want interference. I didn't want to
get distracted by other people's opinions. But there were really
(04:47):
good songwriters I trusted who I would play the songs
to to get feedback after I had finished. And that's
still the case mostly now for my husband John, who
I work with a lot who's produced my records. We
co write a lot. He's a tremendous musician and I
trust him.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Where did you and he meet?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
My first husband introduced us and I said to myself,
Oh my god, my life is getting it so complicated.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And Crowell your first husband, you did a lot of
recordings with him as well.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
He produced you as well. Correct?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I did you know? There's something about working with your
spouse if you find a rhythm and a groove and
you can stop bringing your personal life into every interaction
and fighting. There's something capital or romantic about that. Excepting
and create. Yeah, being created.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I always wanted to work with my wife and do
some silly TV show just to work with my wife.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
I didn't really care about what it was. To a degree,
Oh do it?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Do it?
Speaker 5 (05:48):
I thought about it. We tried.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But so Rodney Crowell your first husband, John Leventhal your
current husband. How does that change over time in terms
of what you rely on producers for? There was this
I always wondered for me, who's a complete novice? Like
does Quincy Jones walk into the studio and say to
Michael Jackson sing it this way? Is there somebody who
tells you what to do what they want you to.
(06:11):
Try to do that pushes you.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
That would be a little blunt and probably put me off,
But I know what you mean. But yet they push.
I mean I think that Rodney when I was young,
you know, we were working together. I think he had
more confidence in my voice than I did, and he
kept pushing, you know, do it this way, try it
this way, you can do this. You know, what would
you think about this? And even to the point of
(06:36):
you know, method acting, like what's the spirit behind this,
what's the memory behind this, what's the feeling behind this,
what's the truth of this? Exactly? With John he pushes
me even more and sometimes I just say, I'm not
a session singer. Get someone who will obey you, because
that's not me. But it's always in the service of
(06:59):
doing something good together.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Right, you talk about method acting and the truth of something.
There are sections of your biography and periods of your life.
Will you go to Vanderbilt? How long were you at Vanderbilt?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
A year? Was an incredibly lonely experienced.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Oh really, and you had gone there to study what.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I'm double majored in English and drama. I had a
fabulous English professor Walter Sullivan, who was kind of a legendary.
I learned a lot from him, but I was a
little older because I had gone to a year of
college elsewhere, moved to London for six months, came back.
So I was twenty years old as a sophomore. And
it made a difference at that age, and I didn't
(07:40):
have any friends, and so you enjoy this. I went
to the Lee Strasburg Institute and Lee was still teaching
there and I audited his classes. He was so frightening,
did you know, Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yes, he would give a lecture when I went there.
I went there seventy nine through eighty that one year
through NYU. I went through NYU and he gave a
lecture periodically and he was mentioning something about the manipulation
of the lobes of the brain. And I walked up
to him and he was grasping, and he was pretty old,
(08:15):
and I walked up to him. And I don't know
why I did this, but I walked up to him
and I said, is the word you were looking for? Phrenology?
And I didn't even know what I was talking about.
And he looked at him and he went, no, he
like bomped me. Now he snapped, and I thought, well,
that's my Lee Strasburg story I'm going to tell for
the rest of my career.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I studied with a man named Dominic Defasio.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
What year, Oh, that was the year before I.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Made the first record, so that was seventy seven, and
I audited Lee's classes and sat at the back because
he was so terrifying, and he would do these psychological
games with the students. I'm sure you saw this, where
he would one week spend the entire time tearing somebody's
performance down and having her redo it, and then coming
(09:04):
the next week when she came in and did it again,
he would just go very nice and walk away like
so that she was always off guard.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Right As a Strasburg technique, Yeah, was it?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Really?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
When I went to Strasburg, there was one teacher who
I've since become kind of friendly with.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
But if somebody would do a scene and it'd.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Be a long pause, a very arid pause, you know,
like tumbleweeds are blowing across the stage, and this guy
would look at the kid and go, why'd you bother?
Speaker 5 (09:32):
That's all he'd say.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Oh my god, I mean they really hurt people's feelings.
But now, when you went to Vanderbilt for a year
and it only lasted the year, you said you were lonely,
you just so were you running away from something? Did
you say yourself, I don't want a music career. I
don't want to do this anymore. Now, writing music is
one thing, Loving music and being an artist is one thing,
(09:55):
as you know, but a career and something.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Is completely different.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Absolutely, And did.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
You say you didn't want a career in that anymore?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
The career part was troubling me, definitely. But I had
been living in London and I'd got my heart broken.
I moved to London and I started seeing myself as
an expatriot and I didn't want to come back and
I was only twenty and my dad, after six months there,
(10:23):
he said you have to come back now.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And now why did he say that?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Because I think he saw that he would lose me
to the family, and he was right. I was going
to just disappear.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So your father was instrumental in getting you to come home,
not only instrumental.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It was because of him that I came home. That's
when I went to Vanderbilt.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
But what was the impetus for you with acting.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well, I loved drama. You know, I majored in drama
and English in college. I loved plays. I loved the
theater so much. And I thought, well, maybe, you know,
this is a way I could work out this enormously
powerful urge to create in myself. Was writing songs, but
I thought, well, maybe this is a forum. And then
(11:08):
I realized very quickly I did not want to be
an actor.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Well acting, it's funny because when I look at your dad,
I don't have a lot of I don't want to
push too far into the whole well worn talk about
your father, who I adored. I mean your father, I
mean I was a little boy boy named Sue sixty nine.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
I'm eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I'm on Long Island and I'm there with my little
transistor radio listening to build me up, Buttercup. I'm listening
to Disraeli Gears from Cream and I'm listening to a
boy named Sue from Johnny Cash, and I'm laughing my
ass off. This guy is the funniest guy. And when
you listen to him in that song, and of course
(11:47):
I read that he did several films and a lot
of TV. He said like a guy that was having
a good time and laughing and having a ball. He
was like a joyous guy, and I've seen depictions of
him where that seems to be missing. He was kind
of a fun loving guy. He wasn't just a tough guy,
you know what I mean? Was he somebody you think
might have had more of a career as an actor
(12:07):
if he wanted to.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You just said a lot here. That captured my attention
and makes me think about my dad and how he
truly was. He had a profound wound at his center.
He grew up in really difficult circumstances with an abusive father,
and he lost his brother who was his hero, when
he was twelve years old, and that suffering created in
(12:34):
him the most deepest empathy and compassion for those who suffer,
and much of his work came out of that and
from our celtic melancholy roots. At the same time, he
was joyish. He loved babies, he loved playing practical jokes,
He loved hanging out with kids and being a kid himself.
(12:55):
So you know, he was the yin and yang to
the extreme of both of those things.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, you see him his looks, he's so striking. He's
so powerful. I mean, I'm not talking about as a musician,
which that's obvious what I'm seeing. I thought to myself,
this guy could have been a great movie store if
he really had just thrown himself in that direction, he
could have been a great actor.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
You know, do you agree?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Do you know what the first film we moved to California.
I was born in Memphis. We moved to California because
he when I was three years old, because he got
offered a film and he thought, you know, as a manager,
is like, this would be a great opportunity for you
to go to this direction. The film was called Door
to Door Maniac.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
Oh great, and he played the title role. That's enough
to cure you about debt.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Then he did a gunfight with Kirk Douglas and he
did several things and he really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, when you get the call you're working with your dad?
When does the moment come when you were invited to
come and sing back up?
Speaker 5 (13:59):
And then you're going to do it? So who brings
that information to you? Who tells you?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Dad?
Speaker 5 (14:03):
He does?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, he said, why don't you girls? I was out
with my stepsister or June's daughter. Why don't you girls
just come out on the last song and just sing
back up on you know, willis Circle being broken or whatever?
It was, Okay, we go out, we're terrified and shaking.
And then I was writing songs, you know, and then
he said, well, why don't you come out and do
one of your songs, And that's how it started. I
(14:28):
remember doing this in Prague when it was still behind
the Iron Curtain, played twenty thousand people. I remember going
out and singing a couple of songs in that show.
That was an experience.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Is it fair to say at all that because it's
easy when you have a father who's your father to
overlook the contributions of your mother in terms of your
career as well.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Was your mother influential in the work you did.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's a really good question, and not many people ask it.
My mother was so private and it hated the glare
of fame. Hated it was always afraid we kids were
going to be kidnapped because dad was so famous, you know.
She was a little tortured by it. And when I
went started writing songs and performing, oh my god, she
(15:16):
was terrified, you know, because her template was you get famous,
and then you get divorced and you get on drugs
and it's a horrible life. And also she taught me discipline.
You know, the discipline I have as a writer and
as a mother in my house is because of her.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Now, when your father gets remarried and you talked about
you and your stepsister getting into the biz, June's daughter
was June someone who had any kind of influence on you,
was she a kind and nurturing woman.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
She had a tremendous influence on me. She was basically crazy, right,
And she had been on stage virtually her entire life
since early child. So being on stage there was no
glamour to it. It was just a job. It was
just part of life, like you know, anything like having breakfast.
(16:09):
She could be having a conversation with you standing in
the wings. Hear her cue walk on stage as she's
still talking over her shoulder. Do her gig come off,
pick up the conversation right where she left it, you know,
and her bag of her shoes and her bag of
girdles and her bag of makeup in the dressing room
(16:30):
and then just gossip, gossip, gossip with their sisters and
then go out and do the show. It was. There
was no separation between performance and life for her. But
what I learned from her is just the assumption of
a certain kind of power and authenticity when you were performing.
She told me the greatest story. She was on one
(16:51):
of those package tours in the South back then in
the fifties and sixties, they had package stores of a
lot of country acts, and you would they would travel
around together and do these shows, multi artist shows. Well,
they're in one place in West Virginia or someplace, and
the banjo player for the band that was supposed to
go on before her, before the Carter family didn't show up.
(17:16):
So the lead singer in the band is freaking out.
He's going does anybody play the banjo? Does anybody play
the banjo? And June says, I play the banjo, and
she walks out and she does the show with them,
plays the banjo through it. And she told me the story,
and she said, in Honey, I had never played the
banjo in my life.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
My god, the nerve.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, I said, how did you do that? She said, well, Honey,
when I walked on stage, I knew how to play
the banjo. That has stayed with me. My whole life's
so fun. When you walk on stage, you'll.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Know Roseanne Cash. If you enjoy conversations with brilliant female
singer songwriters, check on my episode with Carly Simon. A
little over fifty years ago, a show at the Troubadour
changed her life.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Three of us rehearsed in New York for three days,
and then we went out to LA And by that
time I had opened for Cats Team open for katste
something in the sixth nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
April sixth, Yes, and that changed things for you.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
That was That was a convincing night. We played two
shows every night and four shows on the weekend. I
met all kinds of people. It was like the lights
you were shining on me.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
I'll you're it.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
I couldn't say no at that point. And I and
even though I was suffering tremendus stage fright, I had
various things that tricked me out of being afraid.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
To hear more of my conversation with Carly Simon go
to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, Roseanne
Cash tells us about the Broadway Bound musical that she
spent years writing and what that work means.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
To her I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's
the Thing and lou.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
And the Frame in all Songs and Louie And.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
That is the newly remastered version of The Wheel, the
title track from Roseanne Cash's nineteen ninety three album. I
wanted to know what led Cash to re release the landmark.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Recording, so my album, The Wheel. It's the thirtieth anniversary.
I just got my master's back from Sony after thirty years.
There was a thirty year reversion claw us, and I
didn't expect how that would feel to own my master
to this album, and it was like a spiritual experience, like, Wow,
(20:10):
this is mine. It's not part of a multinational corporation anymore.
And it had never been released on vinyl. In ninety three,
nobody was pressing vinyl, and so John and I started
a record label, Rumble Strip Records, and the first release
is going to be this remastered thirtieth anniversary edition of
(20:31):
The Wheel. I wrote new liner notes for it, double
vinyl with a live performance from ninety three. And I
don't generally like looking back at my old work. You know,
I'm still really excited about what's coming up. But I
feel like this was a watershed moment in my life.
It's the first album John and I made together. We
(20:53):
fell in love making that record, ended up getting married.
And the songs are intense. They're about transformation and I'm
proud of it. And some of it sounds dated. Some
might go, oh my god, I wish I had sung
that better, and yet it captured a real moment and time,
like you said, the truth, and I'm proud to be
(21:14):
re releasing it for people.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Who don't know. One assumes that a lot of that
is on a technical side. They're going to sweeten the
sound and they're going to get computers in there to
make it sound even better than ever. Is that what
you do? Do you other than the liner notes and
so forth? Do you really hand this over to somebody
to enhance the sound technically and there's not much else
for you to do.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
No, I wouldn't say enhance as much as just in remastering.
You know, they might modernize it in some way, like
there might be too much highs on one track that
they just bring down slightly. So it's not so much
enhancement as just kind of bringing it to the future
to the present rather right.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
When you record and you sing.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I mean, I don't mean to sound weirdly technically here,
but do you sit on a steward?
Speaker 5 (22:00):
Do you feel you have to stand in order to sing?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I like weirdly technical questions. By the way, no I
stand what I'm singing. I don't like disquish my diaphragm.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You don't. And who did you have any training as
a singer? Do you have any train you?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I did. I studied with a few people. And do
you know technical stuff? Breath control, vibrato, you know, preserving energy,
opening your chest, placement in the either the palette or
the back of the throat for different tones, you know,
really technical.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
Stuff in New York, La London? Where New York? In
New York, m H. I took singing lessons.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Once I was at a party and Cameron McIntosh was there,
and Cameron McIntosh said to me, mister Baldwin, I'm producing
a Broadway musical based on the Witches of Eastwick, and
I would like you to come in and meet with
my producers and my designers and so forth, and my
vocal people. And have you considered playing the role of
(22:59):
the lead that Jack Nicholson assayed in the film. We're
in front of all these people at this big event,
and I said, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
I don't sing.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
He said, nonsense, mister Boldwin. He said, you can be
trained to sing. He said, anyone can sing with the
proper training. He said, I want you to come and
meet my man, John Lyons. I want you to come
and speak to John, and he's going to work with you.
I said, you don't understand, man. I mean, I really
can't sing. I'd love to have the soul of a singer,
but my voice is just in shreds. It's like sandpaper.
He said, Visa Bowen please. He was almost looking at
(23:29):
me like, I'm Cameron Macintosh, you idiot. I wouldn't waste
my time or yours with this suggestion of I don't
think it was possible. And he said, please go see John.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Thank you. So I go. We go somewhere near the
Antsnia you.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Like a lot of dance classes and rehearsal studios, and
I go to this guy's apartment. He's got the piano
there and we sing. He goes, I want you to
prepare two songs, something up tempo and something like a ballad,
and ira I sing, Come fly with me the Frank
sit outter, So come fly with me. And I said,
come fly with me, but and I sing this song
and he goes, let's talk now. I want you to
do this and try to try to do this. And I,
(24:03):
after like my fourth or fifth round of doing singing
the song, he stops. He goes, mister Bolwen, you're correct.
You can't sing. Look my god, it said. That was
like they shot me and wrapped me in plastic like
in the Sopranos and threw me.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
In the ocean. Like my career was over, was dead.
It was dead dead.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I'm impressed you to try it. One one singing teacher
I had or one voice. He was actually a voice
vocal therapist because I had polyps a couple of times
and lost my voice and had to go on vocal
rest for months and steroids and blah blah blah, and
at the end, you know, your voice has kind of
fallen apart at the end of having polyps and has
(24:47):
to be literally rebuilt. And so Bill Riley, who's a
big guy in town. He he helped me rebuild my voice.
And Shirley Tennyson also helped me rebuild my voice. And
he told me that he could tell if someone could
sing by looking at their facial structure. Really, yeah, I
(25:08):
think he meant something about where the cheekbones are sitting
or anchored.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Like are the baffles and the chambers always? Are they there?
Are they in there?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Maybe? But it's also about looking at the well of
the larynx too. He told me that Pavarotti had a
larynx like the well inside where his vocal cords are
looked like no one else's that had ever been, you know,
whatever they put down there to look at him.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Now, I'm told you're working on a musical.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
A musical.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Yeah, whose idea was that?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It was John Widman who wrote Assassins. He wrote the
book for Assassins.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Rather my God, I worship John Widman, so do I
I think Assassins is. I mean, Assassins is something I
can never stop listening to, just for the lyrics.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
John is so special. Yeah. Well Sondheim's so special too,
a bit.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
Yeah, the two of them together are special.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, no kidding. So he wrote the book for the
musical I'm doing, which is Norma Ray. So I'm the lyricist.
John Lebenthal's the composer. John Wibman's the book writer, and
we've been working on it about six years. We've had
two workshops and some rewrites, and we have a theater interested.
(26:27):
So I'm hoping fall twenty twenty four. I hope we'll
get it staged.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Why did that material appeal to you? I mean, it
was a hit movie, but why beyond that?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Well, several levels. It's set in North Carolina, So the
idea of bringing this kind of genre bending Appellationian Sondheimish
musical hybrid together was a fascinating idea. And I got
to say John lebenthalt Man, he knocked it out of
the park. It's the music is so great, and also
(26:59):
for me as lyricist writing and the voice of other
characters that was such a thrill, such a challenge. And
also the story. You know, it's like a union organizing,
which is so timely, but also at the center of
this this woman's transformation through helping her community, also so timely.
(27:20):
So it kind of checked all the boxes. In the
first two years I said, I'm never doing this again.
I hate this, And in the last the last four years,
I said, I absolutely love it.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
What was daunting for you?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Well, writing in the voice of characters who I didn't
have any experience with, who I didn't know. You know,
an older man working in a textile mill in North
Carolina in the seventies. How do I find his voice
and his sense of poetry? It's not mine, you know?
But who is he that? And that ended up being
(27:56):
really I don't know. It touches your empathy going from
there into their sense of poetry and their experience. It's
been uplifting for me.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
How familiar were we with the film? Did you have
to go back and watch the film or did you
not want to watch the film?
Speaker 5 (28:12):
Norma Ray?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yes, No, I was familiar with the film already, but yes,
I went back and watched it again. Not only that,
I did some research about textile mills in the South
and what happened to them, and race relations in the
South in the mills and union organizing, and it was fascinating.
I have a friend in Alabama who took over an
(28:35):
abandoned textile mill to create her own bespoke factory of
handmade items of handmade clothing and hired all of these
women who had worked at the textile mills and lost
their jobs after NAFTA, and so her mission was kind
of in my mind thinking about all of this, and
you know, and the sadness of the guy coming down
(28:57):
from New York to help me organize the union and
it happening, and then the textile mills all close later on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Well when you see this is my opinion, but when
you see dramas or musicals, whatever, let's stick to dramas
that are on stage that are adapted to film, whether
it's a cat or hut and roof or streetcar or
things like that.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
That seems less dicey.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You know, you're going to go open it up, and
you're going to put the camera where you want to,
when you're going to bring all the cinematics that you
want to bring to it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I mean, I think that in general, it's better when
it goes with stage discreen than the reverse and on
Broadway a lot now or you know, are these disneyfications
of films and stuff, which is, you know, it's like
a ride at an amusement park or something. And I
get the appeal of that, but I like something that's
taken seriously. I don't know why I was thinking about
(29:52):
the dresser when you were talking about that. God, oh
my god, and they kept it as if it's a
stage play, you know, with Anthony Hopkins and Ian mccollins.
It was so wonderful.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
I can't believe you mentioned that, because I just did
a reading of that play the other day.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Did you really are you going to do it?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Well, A group of us were on Long Island, some
friends of mine who live out there out east, and
we decided we just wanted to read a play, and
we had a couple of ideas and this was one
of them. So we did a reading a bunch of
us and it was really a thrill, you know. I mean,
it's not much different from the movie, but there's another
situation where, I mean, I'm somebody who's.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
Not immune to being overwhelmed by other people's work.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Me too, And I must say that there are a
few things in cinema that I find more powerful and
more overwhelming than Finny in that movie. But when you
do something it's like, I'm sure you're the same way
with Norma Ray. You got to realize you're doing it
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Absolutely, But it's that way for everything every record I make.
If I get out of myself and try to go
what will please people, it's death. You know, it just
destroyed and takes all the life out of it if
you try to copy the marketplace or try to please
too much. I think Dylan said that once that people
pleasing was death to an artist, and I believe it.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
Self consciousness is death to an artist death.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I believe yes, self consciousness. That's even a better way
to see it.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Singer songwriter Roseanne Cash, if you're enjoying this episode, don't
keep it to yourself. Tell a friend and be sure
to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. When we return, Roseanne Cash
shares how writing her memoir helped reclaim her family story
(31:43):
and her own.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
See yes stands.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
True Even when.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing in.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
The shadows, link and burn away the lasts.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
They will fly me live and jel to a place
where I can risk when this begins, I'll let you.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
September.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
This is Roseanne Cash duetting with her father, Johnny Cash
on September when it comes off her two thousand and
three album Rules of Travel.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Music.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Talent seems to be passed down among the Cashes. Roseanne
Cash has five children, three with her first husband, one
with her second, and a stepchild. Some have even followed
her into the family business. I wanted to know how
Cash managed going on the road when she was raising
her children.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It was less important than raising the babies. I have
to say, I toured less than everyone else around me,
and it was a constant source of, you know, angst
for my manager, because I just I have a really
healthy alarm system about what's too much and what's not enough,
you know, as far as kids, as far as my
private life and being home. And I have no illusions
(33:43):
about the glamor of the life I lead to know.
I mean, I saw that first hand with my dad.
It's like, it's hard work, it's not glamorous. And I
wanted to be there for the parent teacher meetings and
the play.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So I made sure I was now two more things
in the time we have left. So you've written a
memoir correct, yes? And what was that process like for
you As a creative person.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I love writing, or, as Lillian Hellman said, I love
having written. My family story and my own story had
been co opted by the public in such perverse and
diverse ways over so many decades that I finally thought,
if I don't tell my story, at least plant my
(34:34):
flag and tell my story, then it will just keep
getting co opted. And even if it is, at least
I've said it. So that's why I wrote a memoir.
I thought I was too young to write a memoir
in twenty ten, but you know, I could write a
second volume. And I constructed it in a way like
Bob Dylan's Chronicles in that it wasn't completely chronological. That
(34:57):
it was about reappearing patterns of my life and how
songs were attached to them and anchored those different eras
and patterns in my life. And you know, it was
a self organizing principle too. I realized many things about
my life that I hadn't by writing about it.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Do you listen to much contemporary music right now? I
do you do.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I got obsessed with this Billie Eilish song she wrote
for Barbie. Oh my God, one of the most beautiful
songs I've heard this year.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Oh wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
And my son is a record producer. He's almost twenty five.
He produces a lot of indie bands and indie artists.
You know, he's in Brooklyn, and so I hear some
of the people that he's producing, and I'm interested in them.
And I love kids, I do. I love young people
me too.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, you know my sense of your career, of your work.
You're writing this Normal Ray thing, and you talk about
possibly another volume of something by I mean, I'm saying
this because I truly believe this, you know. I mean,
I always find I was blown away when Springsteen went
on Broadway.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I loved that show, loved.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
It, and one was something you could do, that kind
of show. And we'll keep our eyes peeled for Normal Ray.
That sounds thrilling to me. Thank you, and how lucky
they are to have you.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Thanks Alec. It's so good to speak to you finally,
because I have admired you for so long that it
was such a joy to get to speak with you.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
My thanks to Roseanne Cash. Catcher at City Winery in
New York City on November twenty eighth and twenty ninth,
touring in support of the thirtieth anniversary of The Wheel.
You can find additional tour dates at Roseannecash dot com.
I'll leave you with Roseanne Cash's Blue Moon with Heartache
(36:53):
from the nineteen eighty one album seven year ag I'm
Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by
my Heart Radio. What would I.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
To be a time and in your eyes again? What
would I to bring back those old child? What did
I say.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Make your glass turn off this way? Maybe I'll school
awaits today.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Baby, On to school away, baby,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.