tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with cdanne cash, whose latest cit is her first in years. her inspiration is the south. it also deals with her life as and hert, wife, mother, heritage, particularly her relationship with her father, johnny cash, and one of the dynasties, the carter family. we are glad you joined us. coming up right now.

captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. has neveranne cash been afraid to deal with up evils and struggles. the grammy-winning artist has -- deal with people and struggles. the grammy-winning artist has a new album entitled "the river &

the thread." she is recording with her husband and collaborator, john leventhal. the we kept a house on corner, we kept a polished guitar, we kept the tickets to remember who we are i told them on the highway there's nothing left to say i finally made it home ♪ >> you and john got the thing going on.

he is collaborating with you. how do you make it work when you spend that much time together? >> we do spend more time than any other couple i know. this record was a real collaboration. somebody said to me this is the sound of a marriage. that really moved me. it was a total collaboration. we really like each other. we spend a lot of time together, and we get along pretty good most of the time. tavis: marriage ain't easy. like i know. i had better say that before my mom calls me and says, what are you talking about? you don't know nothing about that. read somewhere in preparation for our conversation where you said if you never make another album, you are ok with that, because you made this one. that's a strong endorsement. why do you feel so strongly about

this one? >> that statement will probably come back to bite me in the button a couple years when i make another record, but i feel like 30 years of songwriting has led to these songs, that i wrote months plus 30e years. you know what i mean? levelrk hard to reach a where you feel you're at the top of your game. i hope we were both at the top of our game in making this record. it's the most old-fashioned thing i could do. i made a concept album. there's a single narrative that goes through this album. they are all songs about the south. deep, dark, mystical. tavis: i want to talk about that. i heard you say, if i never make another album, i am content with

this, that was if, number one. we hope and pray you are going to give us more stuff, but there solitudesome sense of and serenity, solemnity about having done something that if you didn't do anything else, you could live with this as your magnum opus. >> i could. i think it defines me, this record. that it was the end of something, the end of a but in thealbums, way i feel that it is the beginning of something. , but way of writing for me i am content with it in that way that you just said, and i do feel complete in some way with

it. i'm not saying it nearly as well as you just said. what you said. the songwriter. nothing i have ever said has become a lyric. don't short yourself. i wille went there, follow you. the last projects have to my mind been about your life, your world, and all the tentacles that come off that. how did this trilogy come to be? how did you get yourself in that space? >> black catalog, if we are calling it a trilogy being the first one, was also a concept record. it was about loss, morning, a map of grief. that doesn't mean it was

depressing, but it really delved and the listhat, was about gaining something, claiming a legacy, a list my father gave me of 100 songs. this one expand much further. memphis, but i was raised in california. i have lived in new york for 23 years, so i thought the south was just a footnote of who i was, but going back the last few years and seeing how deep that connection was in the people and the geography, not to mention every roots position owes something to the delta and soellation -- appellation, it was powerful to connect to all this. tavis: i listen to this song as a sort of tribute to the delta. >> yes, tribute? tavis: too strong a word.

>> there is some mystery. it is not necessarily a tribute to the greatness and beauty of the south but the complexity of the south definite leak, because the violence is their as well as the beauty in the music. is so because that expansive this legacy of the how do you treat that artistically on a project? >> this is where john came in, because he wrote all the music and i wrote all the lyrics. he is so well-versed in southern that blues and appellation and gospel and country pop and all of that he has at his fingertips, so we felt like we nodded to all those forms

without directly bowing to them or mimicking them, and you can't separate the lyrics from that music emma so i think that's the themstatement, to not tear apart. i love that you included all of that, including gospel. >> there is a song that neither john or i are traditionally religious, so we wanted to write a gospel song agnostics would love. figure.o >> all-inclusive. >> nothing wrong with that. that's really about longing we have for someone to take the burden for a couple of hours. tavis: for those who will wish i asked that question, let me ask it now, why the title? "the river & the thread."

>> metaphor and real. the mississippi river we are talking about and the thread because i have a friend in florence, alabama, and i was going down to see her at the same time we were making these trips to the delta in writing these songs, and she taught me to sew. >> this is her work here? but this is her work. as she was dreading my needle, she said, you have to love the thread. i got tears in my eyes. it moved me so much. she wasn't speaking in metaphors, but i heard it that way. that thread is passed and your family and your geography. to love theave thread. i don't speak and lyrics. your friend does. -- i don't speak in lyrics. do you love the thread? how did you come to love the

thread? >> that's a big question. got time. >> i do love the thread. when you are young you are so invested in pushing away, finding out who you are apart from your house -- your past and your family and geography. in middle age i want to know eign all that seem for or uncomfortable to me. i want to know what it all is. all is,'t know what it my children won't know what it all is. i'm a new yorker for 23 years. my son is a fifth-generation new yorker, and yet to generation backs we were cotton farmers. that's important to know. hope thew did you

embracing of that thread will impact their lives? >> i don't know that they can take it in fully now because they are young, but my age i they are'd know connected to these generations and that my grandmother who picked cotton, no electricity, raised seven kids, that she did that so they can have the life they have, these privileged lives. i want them to know that. i want them to be connected to the music. the music is like religious -- religion to me. i want them to know about roots music. this is part of being american to me. tavis: it seems to me there are at least three types of people where this notion of thread is concerned. legacy. we all have a thread, and we all have a legacy. some of us know that. people who

have really done the research to know what their roots are. number two, those of us who haven't taken the time to really dig into those roots, and number three, the group that you are in that everybody reads at knows about your roots and your legacy and your thread. not long ago robert hillburn was on this program with a book about your dad, a new york times bestseller book about your dad. how have you processed over the years and how are you dealing with now that your thread is a threat we can all see, whether we want to see it or know it or not, it's all there? people write about it or do miniseries about it. >> that something. they all have their version of the thread. the movie and books and things is a version, through a prism of sometimes what they want to see.

my version of it is real to me. and if my map of my soul, know how it feels to me. i let other people have their versions. tavis: another great phrase. the map of my soul. you are killing me with these one-liners. you are writing lyrics even as you sit here. have mapped out your soul, is it taking you to where you want it to take you? is life unfolding the way you thought it might at this point? we get to be a certain age, we got to look in the rearview mirror, and we have to assess whether or not the map we laid out for ourselves is taking us in the direction we want to go in. >> i don't want to get to grant about this, and sometimes i feel like i am living back urge. -- backwards.

i am happier than i was at 25. i am doing better work i inc.. i feel younger than i did. to get down to brass tacks, i love being a wife and a mother and a songwriter and a musician, and i feel like the luckiest person in the world to have those things. i guess if the map of our soul takes us where we want to go, the hope or prayer is that we all get better at what our calling or purposes. i hope i am a better talkshow host and i was 25 years ago. >> sure, you are. tavis: what let you know you are getting better at your craft? the people who are your fans have always liked you. what makes you know you get

better? >> that's an interesting concept. i have a friend who says there is no artistic progress. there are only stages of an artists life. i always argue saying, i really believe in progress. i know i am getting better. i am pulled in now. what is that argument based on that there were only stages but no growth. >> i think he is looking at who startse matisse out representational and at the end of his life is a big jazz dancers. they are all equally valuable, and they may appeal to different audiences, but there's no progress. if you were matisse, would you feel like you are making progress? i feel like he probably did. they keep opening more and more. this topic really fascinates me.

tavis: what is your counter argument? >> my counter argument is that you're worth -- work ethic develops. it strengthens. if you keep showing up to work emma your discipline and skill can reallyned so you allow your inspiration to come through, and it will fall to a skill set you didn't have when you were 25. that to me is progress. ray charles said you are a better singer at 50 then you are at 25 because your life shows up in your voice at 50. whole life, a long life. i feel that about songwriting. to me that is progress. tavis: i was just about to ask. leave it to ray charles to have already answered the question before i got there. i am about to ask whether you are getting better, whether this ryegrass is from continuing to write more or whether it is from

living a life. >> you can't separate that. transcript ofhe our conversation the other day. i said, i did not ask this question, which is what makes a great song for you? i have asked some great songwriters, but what makes a great song for you? notthere is something quantifiable about that. songwriting is not factory made. there is an element that has a tingle and a beauty. you could stand in front of a great painting and say, look how that is blue and perfect, but there is something that moves you.

a great song is three chords and the truth. great line.s a you can't argue with kristofferson. i never heard that. you have said at least a couple of times how much you love being a mother. how has being a mother impacted your work? fax peripherally. kids don't want to deal with your ego. they want the real you 24/7. getting used to the real you showing up 24/7 helps you as an artist. >> is that hard for you? you are a star. everywhere you go people are

throwing roses at your feet. they can get enough of you. how do you give your ego less basis? a regular lack that's what's really powerful. if you can show up as your real self you can take that for the rest of your life. also the beauty and love of , andren and how it opens it's open to all kinds of inspiration. i have learned to write in spurts wherever i am. they wanted the pen i am using. >> what makes you so content about the lyrical content? morehn pushed me to write

third person narrative. from ased to writing pretty personal point of view. said, going to these .haracters in this geography i felt a little self-conscious about creating fully formed characters and trying to in a song. i was so excited and thrilled to do that. one song is about marshall and at a grant. marshall was my dad's original bass player and was married to that of 465 years. that was their song. another one i wrote with john and my ex-husband. all three of us.

tavis: that sounds like fun. >> is a civil war ballad based on my own ancestors. ofs in the tradition appellation ballot. tavis: this is a personal question, but i can ask this and you know i am not being disrespectful. what do you make of the fact -- there are so many people who cannot be in the same state, much less the same city, much less the same room with nx, and the three of you are working on a project together. what is the trick to making those relationships work even when they take on a different form? >> there was certainly acrimony. we get divorced for a reason, and there were problems, but he's the father of some of my children. i don't want to make this more difficult for my kids. i'm going to work on this and

have a friendship with him so my kids can feel at ease and enjoy it. to becomefew years friends again. you love someone once, there's a reason you love them. tavis: the transition you had to make from writing in first person to third person, you put it off and did it remarkably well. does that mean you're going to stay in third person? does that mean all the stuff we heard is a ing of the past? >> i don't know. if i knew what was going to didn't know what was going to happen. you don't know what's going to happen. you can only see as far as the

headlights go. yell doctorow said that. >> you got a bunch of hits and a albums. great there is a thread that runs through it. it flows, makes sense, and just sticks. you done good. we are glad to have you back. iu are on tour this summer assume? >> yes. >> that never stops. >> i have a teenager at home, so i keep it manageable. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching, and as always, heat the faith.

>> congratulations on getting your star on the walk of fame. >> tavis, congratulations on getting a star on the walk of fame. >> congratulations of getting a star on the walk of fame. i've been telling people for years you deserve to have your feet in cement. >> congratulations for getting your star on the hollywood walk of fame. good job. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. join me next time for a conversation with the man behind pixar plus tatiana maslany of "orphan black." that's next time. we will see you then. ♪

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