It’s important to preserve Maine’s country music legacy
Scott K. Fish, Special to the Piscataquis Observer • April 14, 2018
One afternoon in 1973, legendary country musician Johnny Cash was writing to his 18-year-old daughter, Roseanne, at a table in his tour bus. When he finished, Cash handed Roseanne a song list he titled, “100 Essential Country Songs.” “Here’s your education,” he told her.
Earlier that day the two were on the bus, swapping songs. “I was on the road with dad, and we were just talking about songs. And I said I don’t know this one, I don’t know that one. Then I said I don’t know that one either. He grew alarmed,” Roseanne told an interviewer.
Thirty-six years later, 54-year-old Roseanne Cash picked a dozen songs from the 100 and recorded her album titled, “The List.”
Roseanne had learned all 100 songs, “The list was kind of a template for a personal legacy, and…for what great songs sounded like.… At this point in my life I’m not only interested in my ancestry, I’m interested in my musical ancestry. It wasn’t just a personal legacy, it’s a cultural legacy.”
Cash’s list and the importance of musical cultural legacy was on my mind this week visiting the Maine Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Mechanic Falls….
Scott K Fish 