‘Rosanne Cash: Time Is A Mirror’ Exhibit To Open In December

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A new Country Hall Of Fame & Museum exhibit, “Rosanne Cash: Time Is a Mirror” will explore Cash’s 40-plus-year journey as an artist, songwriter and storyteller. The exhibit opens Dec. 5 and runs through March 2026, and is included with museum admission.

Beginning in the 1970s through today, Cash has carved out a distinctive place in American music. Drawing on rockabilly rhythms, the truth-telling of folk-rock songwriters, West Coast country-rock energy, new wave flash and deeply-rooted country, her songs have garnered four Grammys, and 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,” “Tennessee Flat Top Box” and “Never Be You,” among others. In 2021, Cash became the first female composer to receive the MacDowell Medal, awarded since 1960 to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture.

“Rosanne Cash has been called ‘a musical mystic’ and a ‘songwriting time traveler,’” says Kyle Young, CEO for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. “Her music moves across genres and legacies, looking backward and forward in time. While she works within musical traditions that shaped her, the way she has turned those traditions in fresh and unexpected directions has defined her.”

The exhibit will include stage wear, song manuscripts, instruments, photographs, videos and more. Some artifacts in the display will include handwritten lyrics by Cash for her song “The Real Me,” from her 1987 album, King’s Record Shop; the 1964 Gibson Dove guitar acquired by Cash’s husband John Leventhal in the 1990s which was her primary performance guitar for many years; a modest desk used by Johnny Cash when writing at his small, private office at home that she inherited after her father’s death and thinks of as a prism where the past and the future, legacy and rebellion, come together and much more.

“I never expected to be embraced and honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in this way,” says Cash. “I’m sincerely humbled, as I have so much respect for the mission of the museum and the dedicated team who are so superb in preservation and education. It’s been a thrill to sort through the artifacts of my life and career with the curators and find that these things are valued beyond just my own memories.

“I have thought about my children a lot while sorting items, listening to songs, and discussing the exhibit, and one of the best things about this honor is anticipating sharing the experience with them. I’m extraordinarily grateful to be given this tribute, and the opportunity to deepen my relationship with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.”

In support of the exhibit’s opening, Cash will participate in a conversation and performance in the museum’s CMA Theater on Dec. 8 at 2:30 p.m. She will also perform during the program, and tickets will be available here on Oct. 18, beginning at noon CT.

Lorie Hollabaugh
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