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.

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