Rosanne Cash was born on May 24, 1955, in Memphis, Tenn. She is the daughter of Johnny Cash (from his first marriage to Vivian Liberto) and lived with her mother in California after her parents divorced in 1966. However, she returned to Nashville to study drama at Vanderbilt University before relocating to Los Angeles to study method acting at Lee Strasberg's Institute. After that, she worked for three years in her father's road show.
In the late '70s, she spent a year in London working for CBS Records, the same label her father recorded for. But it was another label, Ariola that issued her debut album in 1978. It has since become a collector's item. Mainly recorded and produced in Germany with German-based musicians, it also included three tracks recorded in Nashville and was produced by Rodney Crowell. At the time, Cash was influenced by punk rock -- which she had experienced in Britain. On her return to Nashville, she worked on demos with Crowell, which gained her a contract with CBS as a neo-country act. She married Crowell in 1979, the same year her first CBS album, Right or Wrong, was released. While not a huge success, the album included three hits: "No Memories Hangin' Round" (a duet with Bobby Bare), "Couldn't Do Nothin' Right" and "Take Me, Take Me." Many of the backing musicians were also members of Emmylou Harris' Hot Band, and Crowell served as producer.

The follow-up, Seven Year Ache, was released in 1981. Again produced by Crowell, the album went gold, reaching the Top 30 of the U.S. pop chart. The title track, which Cash wrote, became her first of 11 No. 1 country hits and now stands as her signature song. After two less successful albums, Cash offered King's Record Shop, now considered a classic. One of its songs, "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me," was written in frustration after not winning a Grammy. Ironically, this song did win her a Grammy in 1985. She released a hits package in 1989 as her country career cooled. She divorced Crowell in 1992, shortly after releasing the poorly received Interiors. In 1993, she returned with The Wheel.

Aside from a demo that surfaced on Capitol Records, Cash spent the following decade working as a writer and published the short story collection Bodies of Water in 1996. She began recording a new album in 1998 but the sessions were cut short when Cash not only became pregnant but also lost her voice due to a polyp on her vocal cords. By 2002, she had recovered enough to resume work, and she released Rules of Travel the following year. That album featured a self-written song about facing one's mortality, "September When It Comes." She invited her father to sing it as a duet, and it was subsequently made into a poignant and tasteful music video after her father passed away in 2003.