Rosanne Cash's "The List" Is Essential Country Music

Rosanne Cash's latest album The List is more than just a record. It's what happens when a parent, who in this case just happens to be Johnny Cash, takes a vested interest in their child's musical education.

"I was on the road with him on the tour bus, and he started talking about songs," said Cash, who was 18 at the time. "And I said, 'I don't know that song.' And he mentioned another, and I said, 'I don't know that one,' and he grew kind of alarmed."

So Johnny Cash spent the rest of that afternoon making a list for his daughter. "He was very thoughtful about it, very particular about which songs went on the list," Cash recalled. "At the end of the day he wrote across the top, '100 Essential Country Songs.'"

Having grown up in Southern California listening to bands as varied as The Beatles and Buffalo Springfield, Cash had been largely unfamiliar with her father's brand of music. But she knew she wanted to write.

"On the road with him, I decided I wanted to be a songwriter," she said. "He gave me the list at the perfect moment, when I wanted to write songs. And this list was a template for what great songs sounded like."

While Johnny Cash was an icon to music fans like Imus, to Cash, he was simply her dad. "Johnny Cash didn't give me that list," she said. "Dad gave me the list."

He was very supportive of Cash's songwriting. "He just showered love and encouragement on me, the way any good father would," she said. "And then eventually I became a pretty good songwriter."

She knew, however, that not growing up in the South as her father did afforded her some disadvantages in the country music realm. "I didn't have those references like he did," she said. And so, for the first time in her career, Cash released a cover album featuring 12 of those 100 essential country songs.

The List includes song originally performed by Hank Williams (Take These Chains From My Heart), Bob Dylan (Girl From the North Country), and Merle Haggard (Silver Wings). Cash also collaborated with artists like Bruce Springsteen (Sea of Heartbreak), Elvis Costello (Heartaches by the Number), and Jeff Tweedy (Long Black Veil).

"It is the quintessential country song," Cash said about Long Black Veil. "It's got everything. It's a murder ballad. It's based on those old Elizabethan Appalachian murder ballads. And it's cinematic; you can see it. And it's about integrity, not ratting your best friend out. And it's got those heartbreaking chord changes."

And, Imus observed, "It's sung from the perspective of a dead person!"

Some of the songs, Cash confessed, were intimidating to cover. But she was up to the challenge, as The List attests.

-Julie Kanfer