>Rosanne Cash

JOHNNY'S DAUGHTER: I [LOVE] NEW YORK

THE FAMOUS LAST NAME—HER FAther is Johnny Cash—was matched for 13 years by an equally famous marriage to singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, a union that made them hip royalty in Nashville. The artistically fruitful but often tempestuous marriage ended last year in divorce; Cash had earlier left Nashville and moved with her and Crowell's youngest daughters, Chelsea, 11, and Carrie, 4, to Connecticut and then to downtown Manhattan. (Their firstborn, Caitlin, 13, lives with her dad in Nashville.)

"I've been a New Yorker at heart since I first visited here when I was 12," says Cash, 37. "My kids are enjoying the city. I've spent a lot of time here in the past 20 years. I lived here for a winter while making a record, and my manager for the past 10 years is based here. And John Leventhal, who coproduced and plays guitar on my new album, is a lifetime New Yorker, which hasn't stopped him from loving that real roots sound.

"My definition of what country music is has broadened since King's Record Shop [1987] and Interiors. For me, country is a matter of being connected to a source, a feeling. The problem with stricter notions of country music is that it has to be squeezed through the keyhole of Nashville.

"The Wheel has a lot more hope than Interiors. It's more balanced emotionally. I've been teaching song-writing workshops at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, in upstate New York, including a women's workshop. I learn a lot-more than I teach. It's made a difference, having 15 writers working together and going deep into the process."