Rosanne Cash to Testify Before Congress
Rosanne Cash is going to Washington. Tomorrow morning, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter — and daughter of Johnny Cash — will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on the matter of music licensing and illegal downloading.
100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time: “Ring of Fire”
Cash, who is married to musician-producer John Leventhal, tweeted the news of her Capitol Hill visit earlier this week. “On Wed., I’ll be testifying on behalf of the @AmericanaFest at Part 2 of the Congressional Hearing on music licensing,” she wrote, adding a winking hashtag of #MrsLGoesToCongress. A leading nominee at September 17th’s Americana Honors & Awards for her latest album The River & the Thread, Cash is appearing with the Americana Music Association’s executive director, Jed Hilly.
“I am honored to have been asked by the Americana Music Association to represent musicians, songwriters and recording artists in these hearings,” she said. “As a singer-songwriter who has been in the music business for 35 years, I look forward to sharing with Washington leaders some of the deep concerns all musicians share in the new digital economy. Creative people deserve fair compensation when their work is used by others.”
Cash’s prepared remarks are expected to feature a nod to her famous father, who himself testified in 1997 to the same committee. “He told the committee then how challenging and dispiriting it was to find one of his biggest hits, ‘Ring of Fire,’ being sold by someone in Slovenia on an illegal website and that he hoped the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] would aid in solving that. What an innocent time that was,” Cash wrote. “Isolated illegal websites have morphed into a multi-national juggernaut that threatens to decimate the livelihoods of all musicians, songwriters and performers.”
Currently on tour in support of The River & the Thread, Cash will perform a special concert in New York on August 9th as part of AmericanaFest NYC.