Musician Rosanne Cash to undergo brain surgery

Rosanne Cash is facing brain surgery for a "rare but benign condition" and must cancel the last four concerts on her tour, her music label said Tuesday.

"Rosanne is expected to make a full recovery and will return to the studio to complete the recording of her debut for Manhattan Records," the label said in a statement.

"Ms. Cash will also resume her live performance schedule in the spring and will complete a new book to be published by Viking in early 2009."

The Grammy Award-winning Cash, who lives in New York, will "undergo brain surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital for a rare but benign condition," the statement said.

Cash's manager, Danny Kahn, specified that her condition is not life-threatening.

"It's nothing like a tumour or hemorrhage or anything. It's elective surgery," he said, adding that the singer has been diagnosed with ChiariI malformation, a congenital malformation of the skull that affects the brain and spinal cord.

According to the American Syringomyelia Alliance Project, a
nonprofit clearinghouse for information about Chiari and related disorders, symptoms include severe head and neck pain worsened by coughing, sneezing or straining — whichoften don't show up until adulthood.

Cash, 52, is theeldest child of the late country star Johnny Cash. Her hits include the crossover Seven Year Ache and The Way We Make a Broken Heart. She signed with EMI-based Manhattan Records earlier this year.

She has been touring in support of her album Black Cadillac,which was inspired in part by her famed father's death in 2003.

Her career was interrupted for more than two years by vocal cord polyps, but she recovered and resumed recording.

Cash has also written a book of short stories and collaborated on a children's book.