In 1988, he produced and co-wrote Shawn Colvin’s Grammy winning debut album Steady On. He arranged and played multiple instruments on Marc Cohn's 1991 hit "Walking in Memphis". In 1998, he won a Grammy Award for Record and Song of the Year for producing and co-writing the song "Sunny Came Home"[2] (a 1997 hit for Colvin). Leventhal produced and co-wrote all of the songs on Rosanne Cash's 2014 release The River & the Thread. On February 8, 2015, The River & the Thread won three Grammy awards: Americana Album of the Year, Best American Roots Song for "A Feather's Not a Bird" and Best American Roots Performance for "A Feather's Not a Bird".[3]
He produced and co-wrote most of the songs on soul singer William Bell's 2016 Stax Records release This Is Where I Live, which won the 2017 Grammy for Americana Album of the Year. In 2018 Leventhal produced the song "Let My Mother Live", co-written with Marc Cohn and performed by The Blind Boys Of Alabama; the song was nominated for a Grammy for Best American Roots Performance. The song "Crossing To Jerusalem" written with Rosanne Cash was nominated for Best American Roots song for the 2019 Grammys.[4] Sarah Jarosz's album World on the Ground, produced by Leventhal, won the 2021 Grammy for Best Americana Album.[5]
Leventhal has produced albums that have been nominated for a total of 19 Grammy Awards.[citation needed]
Leventhal lives with his wife Rosanne Cash and their children in New York City.[10]
Leventhal's mother was of Irish and Cuban descent, and his father was Jewish.[11] In 2014, Newsweek reported "Before [Leventhal and Cash] were married by a rabbi, Johnny Cash said, 'I've been waiting 40 years for one of my daughters to marry a Jew.'"[11]