Rosanne Cash's "The List"–A Confirmation of the Value of the "Top 100"
Terry Gross, host of NPR’s “Fresh Air,” recently interviewed Rosanne Cash, daughter of Johnny Cash, and singer/songwriter in her own right. Here is the link to a great interview. On the radio program Cash samples 4 or 5 songs from her latest album, “The List.” Below is the story she tells of how “The List” was created as a gift from her father Johnny:
“When I was 18 years old, I went on the road with my dad after I graduated from high school. And we were riding on the tour bus one day, kind of rolling through the South, and he mentioned a song,” Cash says. “We started talking about songs, and he mentioned one, and I said I don’t know that one. And he mentioned another. I said, ‘I don’t know that one either, Dad,’ and he became very alarmed that I didn’t know what he considered my own musical genealogy. So he spent the rest of the afternoon making a list for me, and at the end of the day, he said, ‘This is your education.’ And across the top of the page, he wrote ‘100 Essential Country Songs.'”
Despite his own label, Johnny Cash didn’t limit his choices with a strict definition of “country” music.
“The list might have been better titled ‘100 Essential American Songs,’ because it was very comprehensive. He covered every critical point in Southern and American music: early folk songs, protest songs, Delta blues, Southern gospel, early country music, Appalachian. Everything that fed into modern country music was on that list.”
One thing that struck me about this story was how easily Johnny Cash could start listing 100 best songs on a sheet of paper. His daughter says he could also play and sing all these songs.
Why post a link to an interview about country music on a memoir blog? Well, it boils down to this: Johnny Cash knew his subject inside and out. He put in his 10,000 hours (Malcolm Gladwell’s definition for how long it takes to master a subject) long before he wrote the list for his daughter. A blog is a very public way to learn, and I am still far from putting in the requisite 10,000 hours of effort. However, some day my own list of the essential 100 memoirs will come naturally and easily to me–and will be posted here!
Please keep Malcolm Gladwell away from Johnny Cash n his memory -the twain need never meet!
Hi, Tonyjoe,I take it that you love Johnny Cash! I'm curious about why you object to linking his memory to any idea of Malcolm Gladwell's. Would you mind telling us more?
Please keep Malcolm Gladwell away from Johnny Cash n his memory -the twain need never meet!
Hi, Tonyjoe,I take it that you love Johnny Cash! I'm curious about why you object to linking his memory to any idea of Malcolm Gladwell's. Would you mind telling us more?
[…] genre, explored in depth, create a curriculum that anyone else can learn from. Johnny Cash used the same method to teach his daughter the classics of country music. Bennington College offers one of the best low […]
i read and where anyone can enter to possibly win the top 100 CDs selected by their listeners. …… Rosanne Cash
[…] I heard about Johnny Cash’s daughter Rosanne Cash’s album The List, I blogged about it here. Last night I heard Diane Rehm interview Rosanne, and the broadcast brought tears to my eyes. If […]
[…] Level II of Composed moves from piecing wholes out of fragments to the use of that process in the creation of songs and stories. Some sections of the book dealing with how individual songs or albums came together will only interest fans and music buffs, but whenever the stories include relationship elements, all readers perk up. Most interesting of all are the occasions when Rosanne manages to capture her famous father’s full attention. She does this by her ignorance at first. He is appalled that she doesn’t know the 100 songs that created the foundation of American country music. The list he gives her, and her avid study of it, result in a beautiful album I discussed here. […]