Country Music Hall of Fame opens Roseanne Cash exhibit

The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Country Music Museum will explore the groundbreaking, influential career of Rosanne Cash in its newest exhibition. Rosanne Cash: Time Is a Mirror explores Cash’s 40-plus year journey as an artist, songwriter and storyteller and how she has embodied both tradition and innovation in her musical career. The exhibition, which opens on Thursday, December 5th and runs until March 2026, is included with museum admission.

From the 1970s to the present, Cash has secured a distinctive place in American music. Their songs are based on rockabilly rhythms, the truth-telling of folk-rock songwriters, West Coast country-rock energy, new wave flash and deep-rooted country music. A four-time Grammy winner, her hits include “Seven Year Ache,” “Blue Moon with Heartache,” “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.” It Hasn’t Happened Yet,” “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” “No Memories Hangin’ Round,” and “Never Be You,” among others. Throughout her career, she has maintained an unwavering artistic spirit and vision. In 2021, Cash became the first female composer to receive the MacDowell Medal, awarded since 1960 to a female artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture.

“Rosanne Cash has been called a ‘musical mystic’ and a ‘songwriter-time traveler,'” said Kyle Young, executive director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. “Their music moves across genres and legacies, looking back and forward in time. While working within the musical traditions that have shaped her, she has defined the ways in which she has taken those traditions in new and unexpected directions.”

“I never expected to be welcomed and honored in this way by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Country Music Museum,” Cash said. “I am truly honored as I have great respect for the museum’s mission and the dedicated team who excel in conservation and education. It was exciting to go through the artifacts of my life and career with the curators and realize that these things have value beyond my own memories. I thought about my children a lot while sorting through items, listening to songs, and discussing the exhibit, and the best part of this honor is the anticipation of sharing the experience with them. I am extremely grateful for this honor and the opportunity to deepen my relationship with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.”

The exhibition includes stage clothing, song manuscripts, instruments, photographs, videos and more. Artifacts on display include:

• Cash’s handwritten lyrics for her song “The Real Me” from her 1987 album King’s Record Shop.
• Cash’s red velvet scarf worn in the 1988 music video for “It’s a Such a Small World” by Rodney Crowell. Her duet with Crowell was a number one country hit and was included on his 1988 album Diamonds & Dust.
• A humble desk that Johnny Cash used while writing in his small, private home office. Rosanne, who inherited the desk after her father’s death, sees it as a prism in which past and future, legacy and rebellion come together.
• The 1964 Gibson Dove guitar that Cash’s husband John Leventhal purchased in the 1990s. For many years it was their main performance guitar. Leventhal also played the instrument extensively on Cash’s 2003 album Rules of Travel and gave it as a wedding gift to Rosanne’s daughter Carrie Crowell and her husband, musician and producer Dan Knobler in 2014.
• Cash’s model guitar Martin OM-28M Rosanne Cash Signature Edition, which she used extensively. The instrument is the first of 48 of her signature guitars she has built, with a rose inlay on the headstock and a mother-of-pearl inlaid “CASH” script on the last fret of the fingerboard.
• Cash’s handwritten lyrics to her song “Closer Than I Appear” from her 2003 album Rules of Travel.
• Laser-cut leather duster coat designed by Carmen Marc Valvo that Cash wore in 2006 at performances including the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, her concert at Carnegie Hall and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
• Cash’s checked Libertine jacket was worn on the cover of her 2009 album The List.
• Cash’s Alabama Chanin suede jacket, embellished with gold beads, worn when she was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in 2017. During the ceremony at ACL Live in Austin at the Moody Theater, Cash and John Leventhal were joined by Ry Cooder and Neko Case and Elvis Costello for a performance of Cash’s breakthrough 1981 hit “Seven Year Ache.”
• Jacket designed by Stella McCartney, decorated with rhinestones and embroidered birds, worn by Cash at the Americana Honors & Awards ceremony at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in 2018.

Program for the opening weekend
In support of the exhibition opening, Cash will participate in a conversation and performance in the museum’s CMA Theater on Sunday, December 8, at 2:30 p.m. The interview is illustrated with archive photos, audio recordings and video clips. Cash will also be available during the program. Tickets are available here on Friday, October 18th from 12pm Central.