Always Been There: Rosanne Cash, "The List", and the Spirit of Southern Music

In 1973, Rosanne Cash s father gave her a list of 100 songs, many from the Southern tradition, that he felt a young musician had to know. Always Been There tells the inside story of the album that, more than thirty-five years later, resulted from the list.

Based on original interviews conducted in the studio, at home in New York City, and on tour in Europe, Always Been There documents a pivotal episode in Rosanne Cash s long and fascinating career. As she, along with producer and husband John Leventhal, painstakingly reconstructs what songs made the list and why, we gain an unmatched understanding of a longer musican continuium that includes the Carter Family and other fabled names of the Southern pantheon and their influence on her music and writing. We also see how Leventhal s talents as an arranger and musician pair with Rosanne s searching vocal performances to make these old songs new again.

Always Been There tracks Rosanne Cash s singular and storied career from her early commercial hits with albums like King s Record Shop through her controversial split with Nashville tradition on albums like the mercurial Interiors to the sublime Black Cadillac. It paints an unforgettable portrait of Rosanne confronting music-making in the aftermath of serious brain surgery, her lifelong search for her legacy, and her unique creative partnerships.