'Black Cadillac' Gives Grief A Lift

Rosanne Cash's Latest Album Reflects On Love And Loss

(CBS) 
"It was great to stock in some time with my dad because he had traveled so much through my childhood. So just being with him on the bus every day and going to new places and traveling with him, that was wonderful," Cash recalls.

"And I really satisfied some childhood yearning for him that I had. But it was great in another way in that I sat in the wings every night and watched him for three years. And I saw the essence of him, that's where the essence of him flourished, is under the spotlight. So to see that every night was beautiful," she says.

At 24 Rosanne Cash released her debut album, a defiant blend of country, rock and progressive folk.

And just a year later, the first in a string of 11 number one country hits.

For someone so reluctant to seek fame, Cash says her early years as a hit performer, while filled with turmoil, were beneficial.

"Seventy-nine to '89, it was blessed by children and marred by drugs and fear and somewhat tumultuous marriage. And looking back, I say it was all good, I learned a lot," Cash says, adding that her most important lesson learned was how to be a good mother.

Her 13-year marriage to musician Rodney Crowell, the father of her four daughters and producer of many of her early albums, ended in 1992.

And these days, the 50-year-old mother, now with five children, calls New York home, where she lives with her second husband and musical collaborator, Jon Leventhal.

Cash, who is also a published author and essayist, has enjoyed watching her children attempt to follow in the family business.

"They've seen it all. They've been on the road. They've been in the studio. They know their grandfather's life, they know my life," Cash says. "They, you know, there's not much that can surprise them or, or seduce them really."

While she strives to maintain her privacy, Rosanne Cash's resolve to be a private person is being tested like never before.

The hit movie "Walk The Line," which chronicles the love affair between Johnny Cash and June Carter, is expected to be a big contender at this year's Academy Awards. And there's a musical, soon to open on Broadway.

"I am the last person that could be objective about that story, you know?" Cash admits. "And I think that anyone would have a hard time seeing the screen version of their childhood, you know?

"Because there's no way to be objective about it. Particularly painful parts of your childhood, the break up of your parents' marriage and my father's drug addiction. You know, that's not something I want to see fictionalized," Cash says.

"It was," Cash says bluntly, "it was hard enough living with the real thing."

And while the world honors a lost musical icon, for Rosanne Cash the loss is more profound: she didn't lose Johnny Cash, the legend. She lost her dad.

Regarding her father's relationship with Carter, Cash remarks that it was inflated by public perception. What really existed, Cash says, "was true companionship and they were incredibly close and kind of fitted each other --they filled in each other's parts in that best way that great couples do, you know? That was a relationship that was destined. Even as a child, I saw that it was destined."

Asked how her father, her mother and Carter might view "Black Cadillac," Rosanne Cash seemed unsure, adding that, "I feel I did my best work and I can't share it with them. And yet I wouldn't have written it had they been there. It's strange.

"And yet I hope they do hear it," she says.