On one of the early trips that inspired Rosanne Cash's new 'The River & the Thread' album, the singer watched as Marshall Grant, Johnny Cash's longtime bass player, rehearsed for a charity show.

It would be his last performance, but thanks to the song 'Etta's Tune,' not the final memory of him. Cash tells Taste of Country that these are the sort of people and places that make up the newly-released collection of songs -- one she calls her best ever.

A series of trips south stirred her creativity, but a dedicated roadtrip from Memphis through Oxford, Miss. to New Orleans along Highway 61 solidified much of the music. “To see these places of music and revolution, you have to start wondering, ‘What happened in the Delta?’” Cash asks in this video interview.

Cash admits she spent years, decades even, avoiding her family's heritage. “I just found in my life that the things I pushed away the hardest, I embraced the closest in middle age,” Johnny Cash's daughter explains. “And I don’t know why that is.”

The interview begins with Cash recalling an early road trip she took with her family. That one was planned, and it didn't go well. “It was so long and dusty,” she says, smiling. “I remember by the time we got there we didn’t even want to get out of the car and look at it.”

This trip, as unplanned as it was, was much more satisfying. The more she returned, she says, the more inspiring the area became. Critics seem to agree with her assessment that 'The River & the Thread' is her best work ever. It's available now at digital retailers and in stores.

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