Rosanne is Johnny Cash's oldest daughter (with first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin), born shortly before his first single. She seemed born to make music, and indeed is one of the most gifted and talented singer/songwriters in country music. During the 70's and 80's Rosanne charted more than twenty top 40 hits, including the phenomenally successful "Seven Year Ache," as well as duets with Bobby Bare and former husband Rodney Crowell (married from 1979 to 1992), and songs written by her father ("Tennessee Flat-Top Box"), John Hiatt ("The Way We Make A Broken Heart"), and Tom Petty ("Never Be You"), in addition to songs she herself wrote. After 1990, with her country popularity slipping, she moved out of Nashville. She focused on her writing, including a book of short stories, Bodies of Water. She began recording again in 2003, releasing Rules of Travel, which featured Steve Earle and Sheryl Crow. In 2006, after the devastating losses (within a 24-month period) of her step-mother, father, and mother, she released the amazing Black Cadillac, a cathartic work chronicling her feelings since the death of June Carter in May of 2003 and through the death of Vivian Distin in May of 2005. In his autobiography, Cash himself called his eldest daughter "The Brain." She certainly deserves the nickname.
