Set for a January 14th release through her new label Blue Note Records, The River & the Thread features 11 songs written by the GRAMMY winner and her husband John Leventhal (who also produced and arranged the album). It's Cash's first album since 2009′s The List (a collection of covers from a list of essential songs her father, Johnny Cash, had given her), and her first of original material since 2006′s Black Cadillac.

The 'thread' running through the album is the South, and more specifically, Cash's relationship with it. She recently reconnected with the region during a series of trips she and Leventhal took there over the past few years, which started when she was asked to participate in events surrounding the restoration of her father's boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. From there, events and ideas blossomed.

Cash has lived in New York City the past couple decades, but she was born in Memphis (to Johnny Cash and his first wife Vivian), has lived in Nashville (as well as California, where her parents moved the family after Johnny's career took off), and she's remained tied to the region in a multitude of ways throughout her life.