Always Been There
The heart of why I enjoy doing these interviews is when I get a glimpse into someone’s creative process. So you can imagine how interested I was when I found out that Michael Streissguth had written a book, Always Been There: Rosanne Cash, The List and the Spirit of Southern Music, about Rosanne Cash‘s making of her 2009 release, The List. As noted at the book’s site, Streissguth is “the author of Johnny Cash: The Biography, and five other books. His work has appeared in Mojo, the Journal of Country Music, and many other publications. He is a professor in the Department of Communication and Film Studies of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, where he lives with his wife and family.” My thanks to Streissguth for this email interview–and I’m looking forward to reading his next book, given how much I enjoyed this one.
Tim O’Shea: How hard is it to know when to pull back when covering an artist’s life? For example, I felt uncomfortable reading the book when an incident occurred at Rosanne Cash’s son’s school (ultimately revealed to be the death of a
classmate). Did you hesitate to include that in the book?
Michael Streissguth: It’s not hard to pull back when an event seems superfluous. I did hesitate to include the part about her son, but ultimately I felt it would help readers understand that Rosanne is a caring mother who has to deal with the same kind of challenges that parents everywhere face.
O’Shea: The book really seemed to turn a corner on the European tour, do you think her trust in you was cemented during that tour–or did it occur earlier?
Streissguth: If there was any doubt about my commitment to documenting her world during the period of The List‘s evolution, it was probably dispelled in Europe. She was every inch the troubadour, plying her art night after night. It was when I saw for the first time how hard she works.
O’Shea: Am I right in thinking that after gaining the trust and support of Cash as well as her husband John Leventhal, it was almost equally important to bond to a certain extent with Danny Kahn (her manager)?
Streissguth: Danny Kahn helped open doors during this chase. It was important to know him. He has a long history in the music business and is absolutely dedicated to his client, so his perspectives were invaluable.
O’Shea: On page 139, you’re helping the musicians transfer trains and you question if you’re crossing documentary/ethical lines in doing so. I’m sure dilemmas like that happened throughout researching the book, but I’m curious why you chose to mention the dilemma here (as opposed to other times you had to consider the boundaries)?
Streissguth: Such dilemmas arose frequently. I thought about the ethical lines briefly during the transfer of trains and chuckled to myself. It was absurd to think about it then, but I thought it might be amusing to the reader to know that I had.
O’Shea: You inject a certain amount of drama into the book (which I found compelling, not annoying) and in one instance, I’m curious: Would you have mentioned Bernie Vonficht (and his conflicts with Rosanne on her first
album) had they not met again at her concert?
Streissguth: Yes, I would have. Vonficht was an important figure during her early days in Germany and couldn’t go unnamed.
O’Shea: I really enjoyed the variety of photographs you included in the book, how challenging was it to get permission from the various sources?
Streissguth: Most of the photos were mine. However, the ones that weren’t were drawn from photographers such as Jim Marshall and Alan Mayor whom I knew from previous projects.
O’Shea: Once the book was released, have you had occasion to hear from Cash, Leventhal or any of the other folks feature prominently in the book as to what they thought of it?
Streissguth: Rosanne told me she appreciated the idea of Always Been There, looking at the spiritual life swirling around an album.
O’Shea: Do you feel like in some ways, Cash used the interviews as a chance to do some form of therapy for herself– many of the interviews seemed quite cathartic (others painfully wrenching) for her?
Streissguth: I don’t know. Sometimes when it’s hard to see how a book is benefitting a subject, I comfort myself by assuming that there’s some kind of psychological benefit enjoyed by him or her. In Rosanne’s case, though, I really don’t know if it happened.
O’Shea: In talking to Rosanne, do you think you also gained greater insight into her father?
Streissguth: I think so. The book helped me appreciate how much Johnny Cash loved music and how much he saw himself as part of the ballad tradition.
O’Shea: Are you already at work on a new book, or taking a break from that for awhile?
Streissguth: I’m working on a book on Nashville in the 1970s, a delicious decade in the history of country music.
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