Rosanne Cash will honor her late father, Johnny Cash, with her upcoming album 'The List,' in October. The singer explains that the 12 songs are all tunes off a list of "100 Essential Country Songs" that her dad gave her back in 1973.

Rosanne puts her own unique signature on each of the 12 songs included on the new project. Among the tunes she picked are Jimmie Rodgers' 'Miss the Mississippi and You,' Hank Snow's 'I'm Movin' On,' Bobby Bare's '500 Miles' and Bob Dylan's 'Girl From the North Country.' Also included are duets with Bruce Springsten ('Heartbreak Hotel'), Elvis Costello ('Heartaches by the Number') Jeff Tweedy ('Long Black Veil') and Rufus Wainwright ('Silver Wings').

Of the life lessons she learned from her father, Rosanne Cash can credit one particular course of study with helping to shape her next recording project. Cash's new album, 'The List,' was inspired by just that -- a list her dad, Johnny Cash, gave her when she was 18 years old.

"He called it the '100 Essential Country Songs,' and said if I learned this list, I would be truly educated," the 53-year-old Cash tells Billboard. "We are culling about 15 songs from the list and re-interpreting them, with the respect of an archivist, the love of a daughter and my own sensibility as a New Yorker for the last two decades."

The choice of Sarah Palin as the Republicans' vice presidential candidate has evoked political aspirations in Rosanne Cash ... at least sarcastically. In an open letter to the Nation, Cash writes that she would like to replace Palin on the GOP ticket.

"I feel confident that John McCain will see that the very attributes he desired in his VP choice can be met, and even exceeded in some areas, by me," she writes.

The eldest daughter of Johnny Cash and a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter herself, Cash goes on to outline her resume, highlighting similarities and differences between herself and Palin on key political issues. For instance, on reproductive issues, Cash writes, "I also believe that a teenager's pregnancy is a 'private family matter.' In fact, I believe that every woman's pregnancy is a 'private, family matter.' (I bet the GOP never thought of making that leap!)"

"I'm sure Johnny Cash would have been a John McCain supporter if he was still around."

Those are words country star John Rich may want to take back. Cash's eldest daughter, Rosanne Cash, has issued a statement in response to Rich's political assumption, which he made onstage at a Florida concert earlier this month.

"It is appalling to me that people still want to invoke my father's name, five years after his death, to ascribe beliefs, ideals, values and loyalties to him that cannot possibly be determined and to try to further their own agendas by doing so," Rosanne writes. "I knew my father pretty well, at least better than some of those who entitle themselves to his legacy and his supposed ideals, and even I would not presume to say publicly what I 'know' he thought or felt. This is especially dangerous in the case of political affiliation. It is unfair and presumptuous to use him to bolster any platform. I would ask that my father not be co-opted in this election for either side since he is clearly not here to defend or state his own allegiance."

Country songstress Rosanne Cash will undergo brain surgery to treat a "rare but benign condition." Johnny Cash's eldest daughter is seeking help from New York Presbyterian Hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.

The 52-year-old singer-songwriter's official Web site announced that she will have to cancel her four remaining tour dates and push back her recording session, but will complete her debut album for Manhattan Records after she recovers from the procedure. The exact illness was not identified, but Cash plans on returning to the stage next spring.
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In July 1951, Vivian Liberto, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, met her first and future husband, Johnny Cash, at a skating rink in San Antonio. The then-obscure 19-year-old Johnny left for service in the United States Air Force in Landsberg, Germany, shortly thereafter, only to return in 1954 and marry the young Vivian. Their marriage produced four daughters, including singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, before dissolving in 1966 -- two years before Johnny married June Carter, a romance that would eventually obscure his with Vivian.

Vivian, who died in 2005, long dodged the retelling of her years with Johnny. That is, until she got the blessing from the Man in Black himself. Together with television and radio writer-producer Ann Sharpsteen, Vivian recounts her years as Johnny's First Lady in 'I Walked the Line: My Life With Johnny,' a memoir written mostly with Johnny's words, via letters he wrote to Vivian during the lovers' three-year separation from 1951 to 1954. As Sharpsteen writes, the letters "provide a mountain of evidence contradicting many misconceptions the world has about Johnny, reveal startling mistakes Johnny made along his way to becoming a champion for people of all races and stature, and share Johnny's touching confessions and apologies for behavior he later became deeply ashamed of."

It was September 11, 2003, and although a beautiful day, there was an uneasiness in the air. My daughter Cindy had just arrived in town for a visit along with her husband, Eddie, and she felt it too -- an unmistakable sense of something amiss, something dreadful about to happen. So later that night when the phone rang at one thirty a.m., after we had all gone to bed, my heart froze. Phone calls in the middle of the night never bring good news.

And then a bone-chilling scream came from down the hall. Cindy was the first to hear the news: Johnny was dead.