Fiona Apple Kicks Off Tour with Manic Chicago Show

Fiona Apple has never played by the rules. "It's all an adventure," the singer-songwriter told Rolling Stone in 1997, when asked about the best piece of advice she'd ever received. "Do whatever you want." At the time, Apple was just 20 years old and had recently released her debut album, Tidal. Fourteen years, two albums and a prolonged period of inactivity later, she's still living on her own terms. On Sunday evening, after performing just under an hour of tunes at Chicago's Lincoln Hall to kick off a mini-tour, Apple ripped off her mike, bid the crowd farewell and strutted offstage, leaving no hope for an encore.

No matter. Apple wasted little time in proving herself as animated and enthralling a performer as she was during her Nineties heyday. Performing for an audience that included members of Wilco, she emerged onto a cramped stage with her four-piece crack band, a cup of tea, a makeshift metal pipe-based instrument and a goodie bag full of what one can only imagine. Candles flickered atop a well-worn grand piano resting on the stage. There was no hello. No small talk. No chatter. Instead, she began to spasm as her band cranked into the stop-start, piano-based jazz groove of "Fast as You Can," a jolt of energy from her 1999 LP When the Pawn. The first tune set the pattern for the evening: Apple would plow through a number in quick fashion and with no frills or flair, only hard-charging adrenaline. After each song, the band would keep playing while Apple shimmied, slithered and convulsed to her own whimsy. Later, while seated at the piano, her eyes took on a frantic gaze. The band provided just enough swagger to flesh out the singer's manic desires while never overshadowing the night's clear centerpiece.

The set was sprinkled with fan favorites: the sultry swing of "Sleep To Dream" countered the quirky splash of "Extraordinary Machine"; the gentle, lilting "Paper Bag" danced alongside the tidal wave of "Carrion." But just as she did in her two performances at SXSW last week, Apple also unveiled three new numbers, all of which one can safely assume will see the light of day on the singer's recently announced mouthful-of-a-fourth album, The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do. "Anything We Want" and "Valentine" came in succession, the former a longing for affection (You can see it … and will grow ... take our clothes off/ And you will remember that I wanted you to kiss me") that swirled around a revolving sample of the aforementioned metal pipe instrument. "Valentine" is a more forlorn, ruminative piano-based number that sees Apple finding solace in reality ("I stand no chance of growing up/I've made my peace, I'm dead and done"). Apple grappled with herself on the third new tune, "Every Single Night": "I just want to feel everything/ So I'm gonna try to be still.”

It was a lovefest thoughout: cries of, "We love you," and, "Goddamn, we missed you" sprang up from the crowd, eliciting a rare laugh and childlike smile from the otherwise firmly-focused Apple. As she ended the evening with Tidal’s sexually-charged single "Criminal," Apple swayed in the shadows with the back of her hand resting on her forehead, much like a child checks for a fever. The band continued, but Apple had already moved on: swiftly, with fluid movements, she removed her wireless mike, wrapped it in a tidy ball and placed it atop the piano. Apple posed, almost Shakespearian-like for a moment. "I love you very, very much. Goodbye," she finally said, addressing the crowd one of the few times all evening. Then, she disappeared.

Set List:

"Fast As You Can"
"On The Bound"
"Paper Bag"
"Mistake"
"Anything We Want"
"Valentine"
"Sleep To Dream"
"Extraordinary Machine"
"Every Single Night"
"Carrion"
"Criminal"

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Fiona Apple Kicks Off Tour with Manic Chicago Show

Fiona Apple has never played by the rules. "It's all an adventure," the singer-songwriter told Rolling Stone in 1997, when asked about the best piece of advice she'd ever received. "Do whatever you want." At the time, Apple was just 20 years old and had recently released her debut album, Tidal. Fourteen years, two albums and a prolonged period of inactivity later, she's still living on her own terms. On Sunday evening, after performing just under an hour of tunes at Chicago's Lincoln Hall to kick off a mini-tour, Apple ripped off her mike, bid the crowd farewell and strutted offstage, leaving no hope for an encore.

No matter. Apple wasted little time in proving herself as animated and enthralling a performer as she was during her Nineties heyday. Performing for an audience that included members of Wilco, she emerged onto a cramped stage with her four-piece crack band, a cup of tea, a makeshift metal pipe-based instrument and a goodie bag full of what one can only imagine. Candles flickered atop a well-worn grand piano resting on the stage. There was no hello. No small talk. No chatter. Instead, she began to spasm as her band cranked into the stop-start, piano-based jazz groove of "Fast as You Can," a jolt of energy from her 1999 LP When the Pawn. The first tune set the pattern for the evening: Apple would plow through a number in quick fashion and with no frills or flair, only hard-charging adrenaline. After each song, the band would keep playing while Apple shimmied, slithered and convulsed to her own whimsy. Later, while seated at the piano, her eyes took on a frantic gaze. The band provided just enough swagger to flesh out the singer's manic desires while never overshadowing the night's clear centerpiece.

The set was sprinkled with fan favorites: the sultry swing of "Sleep To Dream" countered the quirky splash of "Extraordinary Machine"; the gentle, lilting "Paper Bag" danced alongside the tidal wave of "Carrion." But just as she did in her two performances at SXSW last week, Apple also unveiled three new numbers, all of which one can safely assume will see the light of day on the singer's recently announced mouthful-of-a-fourth album, The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do. "Anything We Want" and "Valentine" came in succession, the former a longing for affection (You can see it … and will grow ... take our clothes off/ And you will remember that I wanted you to kiss me") that swirled around a revolving sample of the aforementioned metal pipe instrument. "Valentine" is a more forlorn, ruminative piano-based number that sees Apple finding solace in reality ("I stand no chance of growing up/I've made my peace, I'm dead and done"). Apple grappled with herself on the third new tune, "Every Single Night": "I just want to feel everything/ So I'm gonna try to be still.”

It was a lovefest thoughout: cries of, "We love you," and, "Goddamn, we missed you" sprang up from the crowd, eliciting a rare laugh and childlike smile from the otherwise firmly-focused Apple. As she ended the evening with Tidal’s sexually-charged single "Criminal," Apple swayed in the shadows with the back of her hand resting on her forehead, much like a child checks for a fever. The band continued, but Apple had already moved on: swiftly, with fluid movements, she removed her wireless mike, wrapped it in a tidy ball and placed it atop the piano. Apple posed, almost Shakespearian-like for a moment. "I love you very, very much. Goodbye," she finally said, addressing the crowd one of the few times all evening. Then, she disappeared.

Set List:

"Fast As You Can"
"On The Bound"
"Paper Bag"
"Mistake"
"Anything We Want"
"Valentine"
"Sleep To Dream"
"Extraordinary Machine"
"Every Single Night"
"Carrion"
"Criminal"

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Jack White Kicks Off His Solo Tour in Chattanooga

Jack White performs at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

At this point, more than a dozen years since the White Stripes’ peppermint-swirled debut, Jack White’s resume could be pretty fairly described as "towering," stacked with records, production credits, film roles and label proprietorship. He seems like such his own person, such his own kind of person. But while he’s at the center of all these projects, he’s concealed by them, too – masks behind masks and all that. It’s hard to get him alone, which explains the air of piqued excitement around his first solo album, Blunderbuss, to be released in April. He appeared at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee last night for his first-ever solo headlining show, kicking off a brief tour in support of the album.

Chattanooga snagging the show was a bit of a coup; a more venerable hall up in Nashville, White’s adopted hometown, would’ve been a far more obvious choice. Track 29, a low-slung concrete building plopped awkwardly behind the famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo (now a hotel and conference center), just opened last fall. In a previous life it housed an ice-skating rink, but now it’s leading the slow battle of drawing bands off the well-worn touring paths to Nashville and Atlanta. The show was announced in early February, and tickets sold out almost immediately. The day of the show, a line formed outside the venue as early as 5 a.m.; the doors opened at 8 p.m. but it took upwards of an hour to funnel the crowd inside.

All matters of local pride aside, mostly the excitement of seeing Jack White just boiled down to seeing Jack White, as if witnessing him perform under only the thin guise of his own name would somehow finally make everything clear. Of course, then he went and showed up with more bandmates than ever before: a six-piece, all women, one of them pregnant.

Earlier, openers Hell Beach had taken the stage in a haze of red-lit smoke and plodded through a checklist of contrived sexiness and aimless sludge, the trio led by a singer whose haircut did most of the heavy lifting. But after the break, the lights shifted to blue and the six women floated out onto the stage – almost mermaidishly, all of them in shades of silver – with White trailing behind. Their pedal steel, violin and organ were laid thick, sometimes overwhelimingly so, onto every song: a few from Blunderbuss, some from his Dead Weather and Raconteurs, and more than seemed prudent to hope for from his six White Stripes releases.

The same crew had accompanied his performance of "Love Interruption," the album’s lead single, on SNL the previous Saturday, and had been traded in for an all-male band for the second song. But in Chattanooga, the only dudes on stage besides White were his roadies, backlit figures in sharp suits and fedoras. Ruby Amanfu, the Ghanian-born, Nashville-based singer who rasps so gloriously all over "Love Interruption," plied the songs with harmonies and a fairly mad tambourine; Brooke Waggoner, a singer-songwriter in her own right, plugged away on keyboards, her piano occupying the fore of at least one of the new songs, a bombastic number with staccato vocals that found White shrugging off his acoustic for an electric guitar halfway in.

The set slid back and forth between grin-smearing group-sings and crunching, hair-flinging bombast. (White spent more time tending to his coif, mussing and scrunching the sweaty mess between songs, than did any of his female bandmates.) White Stripes songs were the unshocking favorites; there was a countrified "Hotel Yorba," pedal steel and fiddle and all, and when "Seven Nation Army" closed down the main set, a sizable population of the crowd sang along not just to the lyrics but to White’s jerry-rigged acoustic riff as well.

Many already knew all the words to "Love Interruption," but it’s hard to imagine any of the other new songs relating in the same way – much of the Blunderbuss stuff seems more in the vein of De Stijl, or of "Ball and Biscuit," still one of the fiercest cuts in White’s catalog. Here it spooled into a blues mini-jam, with White screeling away and drummer Carla Azar, buttoned into a high-necked, long-sleeved lace dress, bent double and pounding like a madwoman to the last beat. (Here my notes read "Sorry Meg," followed by a sloppily-rendered sadface.)

That could've sufficed as a closer, but White and the ladies shuffled instead into a generous coda of "Irene, Goodnight," the night’s only cover, first recorded by Leadbelly, since played by almost anyone with an acoustic guitar and half a notion of American folk music, and almost never not lovely. He coaxed us into singing along, and by the third or fourth go-round of the chorus even the drunkest fool in the back knew the words, which we sang up to the stage and to ourselves like our own lullaby. And when the last chords fell there was a little bow and a toss of a pick and cheering as White saluted the crowd, the women all filing offstage ahead of him, and then he smiled and turned and walked away from us again.

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Jack White Kicks Off His Solo Tour in Chattanooga

Jack White performs at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

At this point, more than a dozen years since the White Stripes’ peppermint-swirled debut, Jack White’s resume could be pretty fairly described as "towering," stacked with records, production credits, film roles and label proprietorship. He seems like such his own person, such his own kind of person. But while he’s at the center of all these projects, he’s concealed by them, too – masks behind masks and all that. It’s hard to get him alone, which explains the air of piqued excitement around his first solo album, Blunderbuss, to be released in April. He appeared at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee last night for his first-ever solo headlining show, kicking off a brief tour in support of the album.

Chattanooga snagging the show was a bit of a coup; a more venerable hall up in Nashville, White’s adopted hometown, would’ve been a far more obvious choice. Track 29, a low-slung concrete building plopped awkwardly behind the famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo (now a hotel and conference center), just opened last fall. In a previous life it housed an ice-skating rink, but now it’s leading the slow battle of drawing bands off the well-worn touring paths to Nashville and Atlanta. The show was announced in early February, and tickets sold out almost immediately. The day of the show, a line formed outside the venue as early as 5 a.m.; the doors opened at 8 p.m. but it took upwards of an hour to funnel the crowd inside.

All matters of local pride aside, mostly the excitement of seeing Jack White just boiled down to seeing Jack White, as if witnessing him perform under only the thin guise of his own name would somehow finally make everything clear. Of course, then he went and showed up with more bandmates than ever before: a six-piece, all women, one of them pregnant.

Earlier, openers Hell Beach had taken the stage in a haze of red-lit smoke and plodded through a checklist of contrived sexiness and aimless sludge, the trio led by a singer whose haircut did most of the heavy lifting. But after the break, the lights shifted to blue and the six women floated out onto the stage – almost mermaidishly, all of them in shades of silver – with White trailing behind. Their pedal steel, violin and organ were laid thick, sometimes overwhelimingly so, onto every song: a few from Blunderbuss, some from his Dead Weather and Raconteurs, and more than seemed prudent to hope for from his six White Stripes releases.

The same crew had accompanied his performance of "Love Interruption," the album’s lead single, on SNL the previous Saturday, and had been traded in for an all-male band for the second song. But in Chattanooga, the only dudes on stage besides White were his roadies, backlit figures in sharp suits and fedoras. Ruby Amanfu, the Ghanian-born, Nashville-based singer who rasps so gloriously all over "Love Interruption," plied the songs with harmonies and a fairly mad tambourine; Brooke Waggoner, a singer-songwriter in her own right, plugged away on keyboards, her piano occupying the fore of at least one of the new songs, a bombastic number with staccato vocals that found White shrugging off his acoustic for an electric guitar halfway in.

The set slid back and forth between grin-smearing group-sings and crunching, hair-flinging bombast. (White spent more time tending to his coif, mussing and scrunching the sweaty mess between songs, than did any of his female bandmates.) White Stripes songs were the unshocking favorites; there was a countrified "Hotel Yorba," pedal steel and fiddle and all, and when "Seven Nation Army" closed down the main set, a sizable population of the crowd sang along not just to the lyrics but to White’s jerry-rigged acoustic riff as well.

Many already knew all the words to "Love Interruption," but it’s hard to imagine any of the other new songs relating in the same way – much of the Blunderbuss stuff seems more in the vein of De Stijl, or of "Ball and Biscuit," still one of the fiercest cuts in White’s catalog. Here it spooled into a blues mini-jam, with White screeling away and drummer Carla Azar, buttoned into a high-necked, long-sleeved lace dress, bent double and pounding like a madwoman to the last beat. (Here my notes read "Sorry Meg," followed by a sloppily-rendered sadface.)

That could've sufficed as a closer, but White and the ladies shuffled instead into a generous coda of "Irene, Goodnight," the night’s only cover, first recorded by Leadbelly, since played by almost anyone with an acoustic guitar and half a notion of American folk music, and almost never not lovely. He coaxed us into singing along, and by the third or fourth go-round of the chorus even the drunkest fool in the back knew the words, which we sang up to the stage and to ourselves like our own lullaby. And when the last chords fell there was a little bow and a toss of a pick and cheering as White saluted the crowd, the women all filing offstage ahead of him, and then he smiled and turned and walked away from us again.

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Bruce Springsteen Kicks Off 2012 Tour at New York's Apollo Theater

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band at The Apollo Theater. Kevin Mazur/WireImage for SiriusXM/Courtesy of SiriusXM

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's concert at New York's Apollo Theater was an evening of firsts. It was the first show they've played in support of Springsteen's new LP Wrecking Ball, their first show in well over two years, their first show with a newly assembled five-piece horn section, their first show since adding an extra percussionist to the band and their first show at the legendary soul venue. But one first hovered above all the rest: it was their first ever show without Clarence Clemons. "We're missing a few people tonight," Springsteen said early on. "But if you're here, and we are here, they are here." 

The concert was also the first opportunity for Springsteen fans to check out Clarence's nephew Jake Clemons, who now splits sax duties with Ed Manion. Jake (destined to be known as the Little Big Man) stayed in the back with the horn section during the first two songs, but when the group kicked into "Badlands," he moved his way up to play his uncle's famous solo. It was a big moment, a real passing of the torch, and he absolutely nailed it. 

The concert was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of SiriusXM satellite radio. Only a fraction of the tickets were distributed to the public, and it was a mob scene outside.  Die-hard fans held up signs desperately seeking tickets, and paparazzi and autograph seekers aggressively chased down the celebrity guests. The lucky few inside took advantage of the open bar and hors d'oeuvres and gawked at Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Elvis Costello, Paul Rudd, John McEnroe, Chad Smith, Steve Earle, Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate and many other big names as they waited for the show (which was broadcast live on SiriusXM) to begin.

The concert started with each member of the E Street Band taking the stage one by one as they touched the famous Apollo Theater tree stump for good luck. They opened up with new tracks "We Take Care Of Our Own" and "Wrecking Ball." The group has been rehearsing in New Jersey for a couple of months, and their hard work has clearly paid off. Nobody sounded rusty, even though this was the first time many of the songs have been played in public.

When Springsteen began calling his backing group the E Street Band in 1974, it consisted of a mere five people. That number has now swelled to sixteen, and at times it sounds like a cross between the old E Street Band, the Seeger Sessions Band and, to a slightly lesser extent, Arcade Fire. This new iteration of the group allows Springsteen to create lush new arrangements of old material, such as the gospel-infused "My City of Ruins" he played early on at this show, or a cover of the Temptations' "The Way You Do The Thing You Do" featuring a chorus of backup singers. Some Springsteen purists may bemoan all the changes, but the last couple of albums have made it quite clear that Bruce has moved far from the sound of his Greetings From Asbury Park days. 

For the first time in memory at an E Street Band show, Springsteen did not perform "Born To Run." In fact, the only real hits he brought out were "Thunder Road," "Badlands" and "The Promised Land." The rest of the show set mixed in new songs ("Jack of All Trades," "Shackled And Drawn") with soul covers ("Hold On, I'm Comin'"), deep cuts (a mind-blowing "E Street Shuffle" and a tender "Mansion On The Hill") and concert staples ("Waiting On A Sunny Day," "The Rising"). For "Rocky Ground," he brought out gospel singer Michelle Moore to reprise her rap from the album. It was a risky move for Springsteen to include such a thing on the disc, but Moore made it work – and it sounded almost better live. 

The MVP of the evening was Jake Clemons. He's filling very, very large shoes, but he didn't seem to have any opening night jitters. He pitched in on back-up vocals during the soul covers, and even played a large drum during "We Are Alive." It'll be interesting to see how his role in the band evolves as the tour goes on – but it's quite clear that Springsteen made a very wise choice in keeping the sax in the Clemons family. 

The second to last song of the night was "10th Avenue Freeze Out." The song is (at least loosely) about the formation of the E Street Band. When it came time for Bruce to sing "the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band," the music stopped cold. Springsteen held the mic out to the audience and let us sing it, encouraging everyone to yell out Clarence's name over and over. This could have been a very sad moment, but Springsteen made it absolutely exuberant – which is exactly how Clarence would have wanted it.

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Bruce Springsteen Kicks Off 2012 Tour at New York's Apollo Theater

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band at The Apollo Theater. Kevin Mazur/WireImage for SiriusXM/Courtesy of SiriusXM

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's concert at New York's Apollo Theater was an evening of firsts. It was the first show they've played in support of Springsteen's new LP Wrecking Ball, their first show in well over two years, their first show with a newly assembled five-piece horn section, their first show since adding an extra percussionist to the band and their first show at the legendary soul venue. But one first hovered above all the rest: it was their first ever show without Clarence Clemons. "We're missing a few people tonight," Springsteen said early on. "But if you're here, and we are here, they are here." 

The concert was also the first opportunity for Springsteen fans to check out Clarence's nephew Jake Clemons, who now splits sax duties with Ed Manion. Jake (destined to be known as the Little Big Man) stayed in the back with the horn section during the first two songs, but when the group kicked into "Badlands," he moved his way up to play his uncle's famous solo. It was a big moment, a real passing of the torch, and he absolutely nailed it. 

The concert was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of SiriusXM satellite radio. Only a fraction of the tickets were distributed to the public, and it was a mob scene outside.  Die-hard fans held up signs desperately seeking tickets, and paparazzi and autograph seekers aggressively chased down the celebrity guests. The lucky few inside took advantage of the open bar and hors d'oeuvres and gawked at Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Elvis Costello, Paul Rudd, John McEnroe, Chad Smith, Steve Earle, Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate and many other big names as they waited for the show (which was broadcast live on SiriusXM) to begin.

The concert started with each member of the E Street Band taking the stage one by one as they touched the famous Apollo Theater tree stump for good luck. They opened up with new tracks "We Take Care Of Our Own" and "Wrecking Ball." The group has been rehearsing in New Jersey for a couple of months, and their hard work has clearly paid off. Nobody sounded rusty, even though this was the first time many of the songs have been played in public.

When Springsteen began calling his backing group the E Street Band in 1974, it consisted of a mere five people. That number has now swelled to sixteen, and at times it sounds like a cross between the old E Street Band, the Seeger Sessions Band and, to a slightly lesser extent, Arcade Fire. This new iteration of the group allows Springsteen to create lush new arrangements of old material, such as the gospel-infused "My City of Ruins" he played early on at this show, or a cover of the Temptations' "The Way You Do The Thing You Do" featuring a chorus of backup singers. Some Springsteen purists may bemoan all the changes, but the last couple of albums have made it quite clear that Bruce has moved far from the sound of his Greetings From Asbury Park days. 

For the first time in memory at an E Street Band show, Springsteen did not perform "Born To Run." In fact, the only real hits he brought out were "Thunder Road," "Badlands" and "The Promised Land." The rest of the show set mixed in new songs ("Jack of All Trades," "Shackled And Drawn") with soul covers ("Hold On, I'm Comin'"), deep cuts (a mind-blowing "E Street Shuffle" and a tender "Mansion On The Hill") and concert staples ("Waiting On A Sunny Day," "The Rising"). For "Rocky Ground," he brought out gospel singer Michelle Moore to reprise her rap from the album. It was a risky move for Springsteen to include such a thing on the disc, but Moore made it work – and it sounded almost better live. 

The MVP of the evening was Jake Clemons. He's filling very, very large shoes, but he didn't seem to have any opening night jitters. He pitched in on back-up vocals during the soul covers, and even played a large drum during "We Are Alive." It'll be interesting to see how his role in the band evolves as the tour goes on – but it's quite clear that Springsteen made a very wise choice in keeping the sax in the Clemons family. 

The second to last song of the night was "10th Avenue Freeze Out." The song is (at least loosely) about the formation of the E Street Band. When it came time for Bruce to sing "the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band," the music stopped cold. Springsteen held the mic out to the audience and let us sing it, encouraging everyone to yell out Clarence's name over and over. This could have been a very sad moment, but Springsteen made it absolutely exuberant – which is exactly how Clarence would have wanted it.

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Johnny Cash's Family Kicks Off Blowout Celebration of Country Icon's 80th

Johnny Cash records in the studio.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

On February 26th – what would have been Johnny Cash's 80th birthday – his siblings, children and grandchildren will gather at his boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas, to celebrate the upcoming restoration of the crumbling 1930s structure. Then they will head to the town's community center to sing and share stories about the late star. "He should've lived to 80," says daughter Rosanne Cash. "It's hard. But it's so uplifting to celebrate it this way, rather than going to a dark place about how sad it is he isn't still around."

The Dyess events will kick off a busy year for the Cash estate. This summer, a separate museum will open in downtown Nashville with the most comprehensive collection of Cash artifacts ever. On April 3rd, two lost gospel albums Cash cut in the Seventies and Eighties will be released as Bootleg IV: The Soul of Truth. A few months later, Sony will put out a huge box set of everything Cash released on Sun and Columbia Records in the first three decades of his recording career, along with unreleased music. There might even be enough late-period material left in the vaults for another volume of Rick Rubin's American Recordings series, which ended in 2010. Says son John Carter Cash, "I do believe there's enough to warrant a release he would be proud of."

The Nashville museum is being organized by Bill Miller, who befriended Cash in the Seventies. Miller, who owned a historical-documents business, helped fuel Cash's hobby of collecting signed presidential papers, while Cash supplied Miller with priceless country-music history. "There were literally thousands of pieces," Miller says of the collection. "It got to a point where I was scared to leave my house." Up to a thousand items will be on display, including Cash's prized custom Gibson acoustic, a Grammy trophy, gold and platinum records, and handwritten lyrics to "Folsom Prison Blues" and "I Walk the Line."

Johnny Cash's boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas.

The Cash family, meanwhile, is focusing on the Dyess restoration. Arkansas State University, which recently purchased the home, plans to use old photographs and interviews with Cash's living siblings to restore the home to its original form. The university is also creating a museum nearby that will cover Cash's modest upbringing through his early 1950s Air Force stint, with items like his senior-prom booklet and letters he sent while stationed in Germany to first wife Vivian Liberto, who died in 2005. "My sisters and I went through the last of my mom's belongings and found all this stuff – it was breathtaking," says Rosanne, who will play a benefit in Arkansas with Willie Nelson this fall. "The last time I was at the house, I was thinking about how many times my dad must have walked that road as a little boy. You don't really take in the full poignancy of it until your parents are gone."

This story is from the March 1st, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.

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Johnny Cash's Family Kicks Off Blowout Celebration of Country Icon's 80th

Johnny Cash records in the studio.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

On February 26th – what would have been Johnny Cash's 80th birthday – his siblings, children and grandchildren will gather at his boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas, to celebrate the upcoming restoration of the crumbling 1930s structure. Then they will head to the town's community center to sing and share stories about the late star. "He should've lived to 80," says daughter Rosanne Cash. "It's hard. But it's so uplifting to celebrate it this way, rather than going to a dark place about how sad it is he isn't still around."

The Dyess events will kick off a busy year for the Cash estate. This summer, a separate museum will open in downtown Nashville with the most comprehensive collection of Cash artifacts ever. On April 3rd, two lost gospel albums Cash cut in the Seventies and Eighties will be released as Bootleg IV: The Soul of Truth. A few months later, Sony will put out a huge box set of everything Cash released on Sun and Columbia Records in the first three decades of his recording career, along with unreleased music. There might even be enough late-period material left in the vaults for another volume of Rick Rubin's American Recordings series, which ended in 2010. Says son John Carter Cash, "I do believe there's enough to warrant a release he would be proud of."

The Nashville museum is being organized by Bill Miller, who befriended Cash in the Seventies. Miller, who owned a historical-documents business, helped fuel Cash's hobby of collecting signed presidential papers, while Cash supplied Miller with priceless country-music history. "There were literally thousands of pieces," Miller says of the collection. "It got to a point where I was scared to leave my house." Up to a thousand items will be on display, including Cash's prized custom Gibson acoustic, a Grammy trophy, gold and platinum records, and handwritten lyrics to "Folsom Prison Blues" and "I Walk the Line."

Johnny Cash's boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas.

The Cash family, meanwhile, is focusing on the Dyess restoration. Arkansas State University, which recently purchased the home, plans to use old photographs and interviews with Cash's living siblings to restore the home to its original form. The university is also creating a museum nearby that will cover Cash's modest upbringing through his early 1950s Air Force stint, with items like his senior-prom booklet and letters he sent while stationed in Germany to first wife Vivian Liberto, who died in 2005. "My sisters and I went through the last of my mom's belongings and found all this stuff – it was breathtaking," says Rosanne, who will play a benefit in Arkansas with Willie Nelson this fall. "The last time I was at the house, I was thinking about how many times my dad must have walked that road as a little boy. You don't really take in the full poignancy of it until your parents are gone."

This story is from the March 1st, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.

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Sinead O'Connor Kicks Off U.S. Tour

Sinead O'Connor performs at El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles.

Sinead O'Connor at her best is pure emotion and passion. Whatever your opinion – and everybody had one – of her famed Saturday Night Live incident, there was no denying her conviction. And that's what made her a great artist. Other singers might have been able to deliver a fine vocal performance on "Nothing Compares 2 U," but the list of vocalists who could make that heartbreak feel so tangible could probably be counted on one hand.

With a critically acclaimed new album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, out today, O'Connor kicked off a brief U.S. tour at L.A.'s El Rey Theater last night. Right from the outset there were plenty of glimpses of her fiery nature. Taking the stage at quarter after nine to a packed and adoring throng – she was given three bouquets of flowers before "The Emperor's New Clothes" – O'Connor and her band kicked off the show with the new album's "Take Off Your Shoes," a sparse, devastating number puncutated by O'Connor's pointed reminder, "You are on hallowed ground."

Vocally, O'Connor doesn't have the same range she once did, something she acknowledged during "Nothing Compares 2 U" when she failed to hit a note. But her delivery was occasionally enough to offset that, as was the case with an a capella version of "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" she dedicated to Whitney Houston.  She also dedicated "Petit Poulet" to Houston's daughter, Bobbi Kristina. And the closing "Last Day of Our Acquaintance" was epic, filled with just as much anger and sorrow as when it jumped off I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got 22 years ago.  The album that made her a superstar, I Do Not Want provided several songs on the night, including "Three Babies" and "The Emperor's New Clothes." O'Connor also dipped heavily into the new album for songs like "V.I.P." and "Queen of Denmark," both performed during the encore, and "I Had A Baby."

Musically, she mixed things up a bit, incorporating a cello into both "Nothing Compares 2 U" and a sublime "Jealous." O'Connor also acknowledged her Twitter breakdown of last year – not specifically, but by joking about keeping her stage banter to a minimum for fear of saying something inappropriate. That became a running gag. Though she admitted she was nervous, in part because of the new album, her first in five years, she was often joyous, dancing about the stage and wearing a huge smile. She was perhaps comforted by her fans, who repeatedly yelled out their love for her. And that adoration is understandable. It's hard not to root for an artist who puts so much of herself out there. It's the only way Sinead O'Connor seemingly knows how to make music.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Read more »

Sinead O'Connor Kicks Off U.S. Tour

Sinead O'Connor performs at El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles.

Sinead O'Connor at her best is pure emotion and passion. Whatever your opinion – and everybody had one – of her famed Saturday Night Live incident, there was no denying her conviction. And that's what made her a great artist. Other singers might have been able to deliver a fine vocal performance on "Nothing Compares 2 U," but the list of vocalists who could make that heartbreak feel so tangible could probably be counted on one hand.

With a critically acclaimed new album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, out today, O'Connor kicked off a brief U.S. tour at L.A.'s El Rey Theater last night. Right from the outset there were plenty of glimpses of her fiery nature. Taking the stage at quarter after nine to a packed and adoring throng – she was given three bouquets of flowers before "The Emperor's New Clothes" – O'Connor and her band kicked off the show with the new album's "Take Off Your Shoes," a sparse, devastating number puncutated by O'Connor's pointed reminder, "You are on hallowed ground."

Vocally, O'Connor doesn't have the same range she once did, something she acknowledged during "Nothing Compares 2 U" when she failed to hit a note. But her delivery was occasionally enough to offset that, as was the case with an a capella version of "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" she dedicated to Whitney Houston.  She also dedicated "Petit Poulet" to Houston's daughter, Bobbi Kristina. And the closing "Last Day of Our Acquaintance" was epic, filled with just as much anger and sorrow as when it jumped off I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got 22 years ago.  The album that made her a superstar, I Do Not Want provided several songs on the night, including "Three Babies" and "The Emperor's New Clothes." O'Connor also dipped heavily into the new album for songs like "V.I.P." and "Queen of Denmark," both performed during the encore, and "I Had A Baby."

Musically, she mixed things up a bit, incorporating a cello into both "Nothing Compares 2 U" and a sublime "Jealous." O'Connor also acknowledged her Twitter breakdown of last year – not specifically, but by joking about keeping her stage banter to a minimum for fear of saying something inappropriate. That became a running gag. Though she admitted she was nervous, in part because of the new album, her first in five years, she was often joyous, dancing about the stage and wearing a huge smile. She was perhaps comforted by her fans, who repeatedly yelled out their love for her. And that adoration is understandable. It's hard not to root for an artist who puts so much of herself out there. It's the only way Sinead O'Connor seemingly knows how to make music.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »