February With Twitter’s Americana Queen – Rosanne Cash
Most No Depression types know Rosanne Cash’s last CD was nominated for a Grammy and that her memoir, Composed, was critically acclaimed (It’s a damn good read, by the way). What you may not know is that she’s the unofficial Americana Queen of Twitter. Ms. Cash has around 22,000 followers and has tweeted almost 30,000 times. The first number is a lot for an Americana artist (Steve Earle has less than 4,000) and the second number is just a lot. Since there are a fair number of Americana fans out there who are not on Twitter, it seemed worthwhile to give you some idea of what Ms. Cash is up to in the Twitterverse.
[Rosanne Cash and husband/musical partner John Leventhal at the 2010 Americana Music Awards.]
There are tons of celebrities on Twitter. Some, like Ms. Cash, tweet for themselves. Some have a publicist or other person doing it for them, and some do a combination. There is no rhyme or reason to this and either way is okay, but the publicist/surrogate tweeter approach mainly delivers scheduling and p.r. material, while the personal approach gives followers some insight into the artist’s personal thoughts and their activities outside of touring and whatever else their p.r. person might see as important. A few examples: Cary Hudson, a great musician (frontman for Blue Mountain) has a modest following on Twitter and doesn’t do his own tweeting. I talked to him during a break in one of his shows and he said something like, yeah, Twitter, there’s this guy who does that for me. Jason Isbell (formerly with Drive-By Truckers, about to release his second CD with his band The 400 Unit) tweets for himself (quite honestly and well, I might add). Shooter Jennings does his own tweeting (I know this because I once started a Words With Friends game with him after a Twitter exchange). I’m pretty sure that Bela Fleck does not tweet for himself, at least not all the time. His profile says, “Tweeting with a little help from the team.” Shooter and Bela – that gives you some idea of the breadth of the world of Americana, doesn’t it? But I digress.
Actually tweeting for yourself is one thing. Replying is something else altogether. Ms. Cash is a big-time replyer (if that’s a word). Some explanation is in order here for those that don’t do Twitter. Twitter has a functionality that allows a user to send a public message to someone by putting their user name at the beginning of your tweet. If someone does that to you, you see it as a “mention” and it can result in a conversation. Even with a few hundred followers you can wind up with more messages than you care to reply to if you say something provocative or interesting. If you have 22,000 followers I imagine it’s a bit like being the tin duck in the shooting gallery. But Ms. Cash seems undaunted – she replies all the time. If someone says something interesting, she often replies even if she doesn’t know them. She converses freely with her real-world buds and even her daughter, Chelsea Crowell. She has a sharp wit and a quick keyboard and she ain’t afraid to use them.
To give you some flavor for what it’s like to follow Ms. Cash, I thought I would gather a few of her February tweets and post them here. Caveat reader: This is NOT a greatest hits collection. With her volume of material, assembling a greatest hits collection would fall under the heading of a Ph.D. dissertation or at least a masters thesis. But it was a labor of love to go back through February to pick out some gems for you. As I did, I was reminded of my bud Markus Rill’s reaction when he tried to go through her timeline to find a particular tweet: That lady tweets a lot! Yes, Markus, she does.
Ms. Cash loves to tweet about her husband and musical collaborator, John Leventhal. Mr. L, as she calls him, is not a Twitter fan. She apparently convinced him to have an account, but last time I checked he had given us only one tweet. So she makes up for his Twitter reticence by tweeting about him a lot. I don’t guess he’ll ever read any of it, but it’s great fun for the rest of us. I should point out here that during most of February Ms. Cash was on vocal rest, meaning that she wasn’t supposed to talk, even around the house. Mr. L and vocal rest combined to form the basis of several of her February tweets:
“Vocal rest not terrible. I get to stay home, make wild arm gestures at Mr. L, cook, write and watch chick flicks. There are worse lives.”
“Y’stday cheated vocal rest, talked like maniac. Today, frantic hand gestures & notes. Mr. L: ‘It’s good to see you back, Punchy.'”
“I said ONE SENTENCE to Mr. L today and he said, ‘Shut UP, Chatty Cathy!'”
“Mr. L: ‘How’s everyone on Twitter today, Punchy? Everybody doing okay? All your peeps holding up?’ Can’t answer b/c #DayNineVocalRest
“Mr. L: “You’re pretty jacked up, Punchy.”
Apparently, the banter between Ms. Cash and Mr. L didn’t start with Twitter. Here’s a recollection of a pre-Twitter exchange:
“In studio 10 yrs ago, band laughs at provocative comment. Mr. L: ‘Don’t encourage her, boys, I’m trying to make it to 50.’ #BestOfMrL ”
Early in the vocal rest phase, Ms. Cash had to take some steroids that made her a bit cranky. This led to some interesting tweets:
“I’m going postal on next person who tells me to use these 2 weeks of total vocal rest as ‘opportunity for meditation and reflection’.”
“Does surge of new followers know what they’re getting into? It’s exhausting enough for me to follow myself. In fact, I’m unfollowing myself.”
Her son is known as the Loan Shark or Little Mobster. Here’s a particularly revealing exchange with him:
“Driving down 2nd Ave w/ LS: ‘MOM! No normal person goes on Twitter at a red light! Drive! *pause* You’re going to tweet that, aren’t you?'”
And she makes a great point about her son and that Cee Lo song:
“What is point of making my 12 yr old buy ‘Forget You’ by Cee-Lo rather than the explicit, when he knows exactly what real lyric is? Serious.”
Chelsea is quite the twitterer herself (and a nut, in a good way). There are some great exchanges between Ms. Cash and her talented daughter (note the user name at the beginning, she’s replying to her):
“@cjanecrowell I think we were! In fact, I went to see the Pretenders in Nashvillle when I was HUGELY pregnant with u. Forgot to tell u that.”
“@cjanecrowell I saw that photo of you with red eyes and Guinness. YOU are Mothman.”
It’s not all family stuff. There are many career insights, including information about appearances and her work. In February, she was working on her Essentials collection and she was a Grammy nominee:
“Just finishing mastering ‘Essential’: 36 tracks from 33 years, 2 discs. Sony will release April 22nd, Sony vet Gregg Geller compiled w/ me.”
“Sony releasing my ‘Essential’ comp in April, EMI was so generous to license 12 tracks to them of my post-Sony work. We r mastering t’mrow!”
“What panel of punitive Grammy gods designed torture-fest of me against Mavis Staples? Seriously. She’s a goddess. And she’s 71.”
Ms. Cash sometimes tweets as if she is Jane Austen. During the Oscars, for example:
“Miss Hathaway has gained the approbation of the assembly! But the gentleman [James Franco] in the dress? I must take to my bed.”
“The ladies’ frocks are excessively revealing, but what can be expected from such a ribald occasion?”
She also brought on Ms. Austen at the Super Bowl:
“The manly vigor is indeed impressive, but I don’t have the pleasure of understanding the purpose.”
And she gives us random goodies to savor:
“I don’t think the word ‘pshaw’ is used enough. It’s practically the only fun word that starts with ‘ps’ & it’s so satisfying in the mouth.”
“I dön’t cäre if the ümläut is önly süppösed tö bë ön the A in döppëlgängër.”
“Tip of the day: that magazine “Simple’ does not work. Everything still really complicated.”
“In high school, I formed The Anarchy Society. It’s sad when your youthful dreams don’t pan out.”
“Jesse Eisenberg’s hoodie in The Social Network looks suspiciously like Mr. L’s. Both must have shopped at the Egregious Green Hoodie Store.”
“There is too much Blood in my Caffeine system. (The first person I ever heard say that was my dad. And he was always right.) #nonsequitur “
“I am really trying to finish watching the Mothman movie to see what all the fuss is about but the music scares me”
“Did you know Maria Callas had a tapeworm put in her to lose weight? Do you think I LIKE telling you that?”
Enough. You should have the picture by now. If you’re an Americana fan, it’s probably worth joining Twitter just to follow her. (@rosannecash, by the way.) Long live the Queen!
[He’s a lot less interesting but you can follow Mando Lines on Twitter @mando_lines.]