The List [CD]

Rosanne Cash has always been in the back of my mind a country singer, but I have also seen her as a writer of songs that she also sings. In this CD, she is unleashed from the binds of her own work. and is singing tunes from a list her father gave her 36 years ago when she was a teenager. It is a list of the 100 folk/americana songs that she needed to know about. Somehow she picked twelve of the very best, and these suit her to a 'T'. She has made a CD that is pure love and music.

Roseanne has not had the life of luxury and fun that one might imagine from a child of a celebrity. Her father was a drug addict and on the road and missing from her life most of the time. Her mother was someone whose personality was closed. You did not divulge anything about the family. She found her own way and through a couple of marriages she is happy. In the past few years she has suffered much tragedy. Her father died, her mother died, her step-mother died. She could not sing for three years because of polyps on her vocal chords. She had a malformation of her brain that gave her such horrible headaches she had to have brain surgery which sidelined her for a year. But she seems to have conquered all of that and she attributes her positive attitude to her husband, love, music, and her children.

I listened to this CD several times and was taken by each song. I had heard each of these songs sung many times and by different artists. Rosanne Cash gives a new voice and meaning to each tune. Her husband, John Leventhal produced and played on most tracks. Rosanne's voice comes through clear with the melodies backed up with simple arrangements to showcase her voice. This is an album that that will grow and stay with us.

The 12 tunes on this CD were part of one hundred voices from Americana. The best writers, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Gary Davis and Bob Dylan. We mark my wr hear the sound of Patsy Cline in 'She's Got You'. 'Motherless Child' is a beautiful rendition with Rosanne's husband playing the guitar in a mournful manner. 'Sea of Heartbreak' sung with Bruce Springsteen is truly wonderful. This tune will be the number one pick, mark my words! The Boss does not roar but gently sings the rhythm. 'Take These Chains From My Heart', is longlingly lovely. 'I'm Movin' On' from Hank Snow takes on a new dimension. 'Heartaches By The Number' with Elvis Costello is more of a rocking rhythm than the rest. '500 Miles' is a tune that has been sung so many times, but never like this- it brings a funeral atmosphere. 'Long Black Veil' a tune we all know sung with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, gives us an image of the words- 'Nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody knows but me'. Dylan's 'Girl From The North Country' brings back the image of her father, Johnny, singing this tune with Dylan. Rufus Wainwright, a favorite of mine, sings 'Silver Wings' with background harmony. 'Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow' is a fitting ending for this marvelous CD-we can feel the America that these tunes represent.

This is a low cut list of tunes that best represent the America we love. The story of how this list came to be, is an entry to the legend of Johnny Cash. Rosanne Cash has made these songs her own and has sung them in the straight forward manner that best represents her voice. Kudos to Rosanne Cash, this is just the Best!

Highly Recommended. prisrob 10-12-09

The Very Best of Rosanne Cash
Black Cadillac

A fan ever since I bought her first German Ariola LP released in 1978, I have always kept a sweet spot for Rosanne Cash's music releases. To me, she is one of the best singers and songwriters from the last twenty years. Along with former husband/producer Rodney Crowell, she was a prominent exponent of the "new traditionalist movement" during the course of the eighties. After separating from Crowell in 1991, Cash met John Leventhal who produced "The Wheel" album. She and Leventhal eventually married and Cash relocated to New York where she began an initially low key recording career whilst also putting her energy in writing books and essays that appeared in the press.

Rosanne Cash's previous album, "Black Cadillac" (2006) was a stark musical offering of bitter beauty reflecting her grieving after the passing of her father and stepmother (in 2003) and that of her mother Vivian Liberto (in 2005). Besides, she had to undergo brain surgery in 2007.

Rosanne Cash will begin touring behind "The List" on 10.09.2009. She applies her considerable interpretative talents to a collection of covers which proves that she has overcome her sadness. This album is, then, a step forward for her.

The origin of "The List" is a very special tale that brings us back to 1973. Rosanne had, up to that time, primarily been a dedicated fan of, among others, the Beatles [she was president of a local Beatles' fan club long before scoring a hit with her cover version of "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"], the Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. At that time, Johnny Cash - aware of his older child lack of knowledge regarding Country/Folk American music - wrote down his own list of the hundred more important American songs and handed it to her. The "man in black" encouraged her to learn them. Rosanne kept the list but, at the time, she was too eager to forge her own path to follow the recommendation. This was a wise decision as she achieved success on her own terms, not thanks to her "pedigree".

The twelve songs included on this album were on Johnny Cash's 1973 list. As she testifies: "these songs are now in my DNA". She is also convinced that it is useful to let people hear these older songs so that they stay alive in the current public's memory. She really sings her heart out on these well-known tunes. Of course, Johnny Cash had conservative tastes in music. This means that all the tunes on this album have already been covered quite often by any number of famous artists.

Four of the tunes are duets: Bruce Springsteen, who she describes as "being really steeped in country music" appears on "Sea of Heartbreak" [a hit for Don Gibson]. Elvis Costello, whose own interest in country music needs no explanation, helps to impart a buoyant quality to Harlan Howard's "Heartaches by The Number". Wilco's Jeff Tweedy gracefully helps on the old "murder song" titled "The Long Black Veil" [a song associated with Lefty Frizzell and which Johnny Cash did record "live" on "At Folsom Prison"]. Rufus Wainwright nicely duets with Cash on Merle Haggard's beautiful "Silver Wings". This track is a special favorite of mine since I bought a Merle Haggard German Capitol compilation at the end of the sixties). These external contributions are not that important to the success of this album.

Other tracks include "Miss the Mississippi and You", a Jimmie Rodgers tune that receives a fitting jazzy influenced treatment. One definitive highlight is the bluesy "Motherless Children" [Try to hear one of Blind Willie McTell's pre-war versions of it because Steve Miller and Eric Clapton sure did!). Hank Williams' "Take these Chains from My Heart" was made famous by Ray Charles on his essential "Modern Sounds in Country & Western" LP. Hedy West's "500 Miles" is much folksier; Cash's daughter Chelsea Crowell adds harmonies to this track. Rosanne's rendition of "She's Got You Now" [made famous by Patsy Cline] is treated with great subtlety. It is interesting to see that Johnny Cash included Bob Dylan's "Girl from The North Country" among his 100 favorite songs as he had duetted with Dylan on this track off of "Nashville Skyline" (1969). The last song credited song is a gentle interpretation of the Carter Family's original "Bury Me under the Weeping Willow".

Two other tracks are also available: a cover of Porter Wagoner's "Satisfied Mind" - an iTunes "bonus" selection featuring also Neko Case - as well as "Sweet Memories" - featuring Chris Thile - and which, for the moment, is seemingly only available on a CD version sold by a US online distributor.

Rosanne Cash manages to infuse all the tracks with emotion, smooth delivery and fine timing. She is committed to bring her own touch to these standards. The arrangements that she and Leventhal came up with keep the original melodies intact and let her voice shine through. Although I own several interpretations of all of these songs, I love the fresh renditions presented here.

Some will argue that there are too many chestnuts here. Maybe, but this is the very heart of the whole concept. Should these critics not like country cover versions, why would they bother to listen to country music in the first place?

The story goes that in 1973, on her 18th birthday, Rosanne's dad Johnny Cash gave her a list of his 100 favourite, essential American songs. (Maybe he bought her a present, too.) As a typical teenager in California, Rosanne was into the music of her time - The Beatles and all the other stuff to be heard on the radio - so perhaps the list was a gentle reminder of her extended family's rich musical tradition and heritage.

In recent years Rosanne has lost both her parents and step-mother June, and has now turned to the list for a selection of country standards, including a couple from the Carter Family, and Girl From The North Country on which her dad duetted with Dylan on the ground-breaking Nashville Skyline album.

The album starts with a lovely version of Jimmie Rodgers's Miss The Mississippi And You which lopes along nicely, with some neat guitar noodling, and Bruce Springsteen joins Rosanne to sing back-up harmony on Sea Of Heartbreak. There's a rolling, bluesy version of Hank Snow's I'm Moving On, whilst Elvis Costello is featured on a gently rocking Heartaches By The Number, which works really well, and is a bit different to the usual country shuffle for this one. Roseanne's plaintive 500 Miles also works very well (I seem to remember her singing a pared-back version on a recent Transatlantic Session programme). Wilco's Jeff Tweedy accompanies Rosanne on the dark Long Black Veil, recorded all those years ago by JC, Lefty Frizzell and so many more. A heartfelt She's Got You recalls the great Patsy Cline, and on Hag's Silver Wings, Rufus Wainwright adds shimmering background vocals

My copy has an additional track not listed above, A Satisfied Mind, a big song for Porter Wagoner in the '50s, which here features the alt. country singer-songwriter Neko Case.

I'm sure Rosanne's old dad would have been justly proud of this lovely, understated album of songs from his favourites, to which she brings new life. The super musicianship throughout is complementary and never intrusive, with the various guest artists each adding a little personal touch that brings something that's just that little bit different.