Mrs L sees and hears it on the streets of Manhattan
Reviews and Press, Rules of Travel
Rosanne’s widely acclaimed album "Rules of Travel" was released in March 2003. Her first album since 1996, "Rules of Travel" was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
The critics are unanimous in their raves for Rules of Travel. Selected quotes below:
"The intelligence and grace of Rosanne Cash has been largely absent of late on the country landscape, and for that reason alone, new material from her is welcome. Mature and impeccably produced by Cash’s husband, John Leventhal, Rules of Travel revels in inspired musicianship and melodic, well-written songs. The gently swaying "Beautiful Pain" (featuring Sheryl Crow) is spare and deceptively gorgeous, and "Forty Four Stories" is insistent and omniscient, while the piercing title cut is propelled by haunting keyboards and slide guitars. Steve Earle guests on the reverb-drenched, vaguely tropical "I’ll Change for You," and Cash’s legendary father appears in touching fashion on a classic-sounding "September When It Comes," which, with "Will You Remember Me?" and "Western Wall" own a timeless quality. Subdued guitars feature on a passionate "Hope Against Hope." The feel of the stylish "Closer Than I Appear" evokes past Cash swagger, and "Last Stop Before Home" is resolute and bittersweet. A complete success." – Billboard
"Rules of Travel is an ensemble work of distinct quality, and, like much of Rosanne’s work, is certain to be named one of the best records of the year." – Women Who Rock
"As the just-released Rules of Travel proves, her music was worth the wait. Its 11 tracks re-establish Cash as one of our most literate singer-songwriters. Each tune is crafted with smart, insightful lyrics, buoyed by Beatlesque, folk-pop guitar riffs and sung in a voice that’s both warm and wise." – Performing Songwriter
"...Cash’s first album in almost seven years ranks with her richest music ever. A redemptive spirit of uplifting renewal pervades this project, which marks her recovery from a mysterious voice ailment that was partly responsible for the extended hiatus." – Country Music Magazine
"Rosanne Cash has one of those familiar voices. The warm, slightly husky tone, the soulful expressiveness and the earthy delivery of intelligent, accessible lyrics. Her pipes are like old friends. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen each other, you reconnect immediately." – Dallas Morning News
"This is a record you play once and then feel compelled to play again and again. There is an emotional pull about the album that isn’t maudlin, but it is powerful." – Dallas Morning News
"...this album falls into a stylistic niche that marries country’s honesty with rock’s hipness, pop’s melodic sensibility and folk music’s tasteful simplicity." – Orange County Register
"...It’s one of the best discs thus far of 2003—and one of the best of her stellar career. It’s personal and powerful, confessional yet accessible, rich in content and sound—refined adult pop for baby boomers as well as younger listeners who like Norah Jones and Sarah McLachlan." – Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Overall, a resonant new affirmation from an accomplished source." – Stereophile
‘"Aided by able guests (Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle) and catchy hooks, Cash delivers a CD of beautiful and melancholy folk-pop." – Entertainment Weekly
"At every level, Rules of Travel distinguishes itself." – All Music Guide
"...Rules of Travel is among the most confident recording of Cash’s career." –Time Out New York
Black Cadillac Named One of 10 Best Albums of 2006
The New York Times, Billboard, NPR, Nashville Scene Critic’s Poll and many others have named "Black Cadillac" in their lists of the 10 Best Albums of 2006 Buy It Now | Album Sampler: Songs, Photos, Video, Comments from Rosanne
Studio 360: Rosanne Reads a Favorite Poem
Studio 360, Kurt Andersen’s weekly radio program on PRI, aired an August segment called "Poetry from the People:"
"A few weeks ago, after featuring actor Bill Murray’s passion for poetry, we asked you to send us your favorite poems. Kurt calls up a few listeners—including a surprise celebrity listener—to tell us theirs." Click the audio player, below, for our favorite celebrity’s reading.
Listen Online to Rosanne’s Acoustic Set on Mountain Stage
November 24, 2008: Recorded at New York City’s historic Town Hall in October 2008, singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash performs an acoustic set for her third appearance on Mountain Stage. Listen to audio stream on NPR.org.
Friday, December 5
We have a friend who recently moved from Tennessee to New York, and we had him over for dinner a few nights ago. We were listening to him describe the pros and cons of moving to New York, and the enormous transition he is currently navigating. He mused about how long he might stay in the city. After listening quietly for a few minutes, my nine-year-old son finally interjected with some stridency, "But… are you going to get your green card??" I’ve always maintained that Manhattan is indeed an island off the coast of America, but I didn’t realize how fully my son had integrated that notion.
Speakers: Daniel Levitin, McGill University; Rosanne Cash, musician Sponsored by: Science & the City
A world-renowned scientist and a Grammy winning musician explain how the brain processes aural information and how our perception of sounds can inspire emotion. The final event in the Science of the Five Senses Series, a five-part series of live events designed to convey to scientists and nonscientists alike the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge about how humans perceive our environment, through presentations that integrate science and art.
Daniel Levitin is a professor of psychology at McGill University and director of its laboratory of musical perception. He is the author of the international bestsellers "This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession", and "The World in Six Songs: How The Musical Brain Created Human Nature."
Rosanne Cash is a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter. Her 14 record albums, released over the last 25 years, have charted 11 number-one singles. Having undergone neurosurgery in 2007, Ms. Cash is uniquely qualified to speak about the brain, music, and the sense of hearing.
Reception and booksigning to follow until 9:00 pm.
Magazine: the November 7th issue of Newsweek, right after the election, was stellar. "Secrets of the 2008 Campaign" was some of the finest reporting I read about the entire election process. These Newsweek reporters were bound to secrecy for the length of the campaign, and finally revealed what they saw and heard in this issue. Absolutely mesmerizing.
Music: I recently found my piano lesson book from when I was ten years old, and started playing the pieces to see if I remembered them. They were under a bit of a haze of a few decades, but they started to form and shine themselves up pretty quickly. I don’t remember loving this book at all at the age of ten. I remember it being torture-- the nun who was my piano teacher was unforgiving and a taskmaster. But something about it must have resonated, because I saved the book for all these years, and I felt quite a tug of longing and nostalgia when my fingers remembered the notes, and the compositions came to life.
Film: I really liked the new Coen Brothers film, ‘Burn After Reading’, although it was a bit cold emotionally. I suppose I would watch George Clooney read a physics textbook without complaint. And Brad Pitt was hysterical. But let’s talk about 007. I can’t say that I’ve ever willingly sat and watched an entire James Bond movie in my entire life, but ‘Casino Royale’ was on pay-per-view a few nights ago, and I was tired, so I sat. I was completely taken with Daniel Craig. Why didn’t anyone tell me there was a new Bond, and he was this fine specimen of manhood who looks phenomenal in a tuxedo and gives the word ‘laconic’ a sexy definition? I really liked it, I have to say. Looking forward to ‘Quantum of Solace’. So glad it’s not all about the gadgets.
Nov. 29, 2008: Five Things You May Not Know
Dear Friends, Here are five things you may not know about me:
ONE: I have voted in every election since I was old enough to vote, and the first person I voted for was Jimmy Carter. I was in my late teens, and living with my father at the time, and when I went to bed on election night the votes were still not all counted and I didn’t know who had won. I woke at 5 a.m. to the sound of my father hollering up the stairs, "He WON!" I ran down and there was, quite literally, dancing in the kitchen. We were so excited. The feeling I had on this past November 4th was similar, times a thousand. I have voted Republican twice in my life, although not in a presidential election. I am a lifelong registered Democrat, but I broke party lines to vote for Michael Bloomberg for mayor of New York, and George Pataki for Governor.
TWO: I’m not very tall. I seem to give the impression of height, and I like wearing high heels, which adds to the illusion, but I am actually just a bit over 5’5". None of the women on my mother’s side were tall, and on my father’s side, the only tall woman was my father’s mother, my grandmother Carrie Cash, who was five feet ten. For her generation, that was a remarkable height for a woman, and she stood taller than her husband. My father must have gotten his height from her, because he was 6’2", while his father was only about 5’8". My husband, Mr. L, is also 6’2". All my daughters are around my height and we look like a band of gnomes when we are all together in a room with Mr. L. My son, who is only nine, is up to my chest and will most likely be taller than me in three years.
THREE: I have a painfully refined sense of etiquette and good manners are incredibly important to me. Bad behavior shocks me. Truly. This is who I am. "Without manners, you can achieve familiarity, but not intimacy." This is a mandate for me.
FOUR: I don’t have a fan club. By choice. I don’t like the idea of it, I don’t court celebrity for the sake of celebrity and I don’t consider that if you bought my record or came to my show, that I own you or you own me. I assume you are complicated, and that is the only assumption I make. And by the way, I’m also complicated. There is no simple equation of an unequal partnership, substituting for relationship or society, which would tempt my participation. Fan Clubs, Myth-making, Gratuitous Self-promotion… none of it interests me in the least. What interests me is art, music, dialogue, the exchange of ideas, the progress of love, the human soul. Unity. Discussion. Transcendence. I want to be inspired. And have a decent cup of tea while it’s happening.
FIVE: Which brings me to my last revelation: I observe teatime every single day, between 3 and 4 in the afternoon, with a porcelain pot, boiling water, milk and honey and tea from either Harney and Sons or Mariage Freres. I bought my porcelain teapot with it’s attached silver cover, which functions as a tea cozy, in Paris at the Mariage Freres shop on the Left Bank. I carried it by hand back to New York and one of my greatest fears is that a child will knock it off the counter and shatter it. Teatime is the most civilizing of occupations, and has straightened out many a rough day, clarified reams of muddy thoughts, provided sparks of inspiration and ideas, and re-set the trajectory of my days and evenings. It is best enjoyed with a friend, and conversation, although if you are alone, some music and a newspaper will also provide the missing contours of a perfect teatime. When I was recovering from brain surgery, for the first couple of months a steady stream of girlfriends came to my house to have tea with me nearly every day, as they all knew this was my most cherished social habit. One friend gave me a perfect bed tray and I remember one day when I was absolutely miserable with pain, two girlfriends came over, set up the tea on the tray on the bed, climbed on the bed with me, and put on a old Bette Davis movie. No talking, just tea and and the love of my friends and a perfect chick flick. It was better than morphine.
Addendum to the five things: I love my girlfriends. You know who you are.
Love from Mrs. L, political, polite, on the short side, social and well-caffeinated.
Rosanne Sings with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City
Rosanne contributes vocals to The CoolSide of Yuletide, an album of traditional carols with new arrangements and songs from The Young People’s Chorus of NYC, with a global mix of choirs from around the world. More info, photos and video.
“Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison” Has Preview Screening
Nov. 14, 2008: "Last night in a screening room lit by flickering candles at New York City’s exclusive Norwood Club, less than 40 people attended an intimate screening of Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, the documentary about Cash’s seminal live album currently making the international festival rounds. Rosanne Cash, director Bestor Cram and writer Michael Streissguth were on hand to field questions in a living-room-sized room that felt more like a hangout session than a screening." Read the entire Rolling Stone Article
Wednesday, November 5
I live in Chelsea, about twenty blocks straight south of Times Square, and I could hear the roars from my bedroom window at about 11 pm election night, when Obama was declared President-elect. The celebration here in Chelsea, and all around the city, went on until the wee hours. There was literally Dancing In The Streets. There was a group in the East Village who gathered spontaneously to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner". American flags went up all over. Personally, we posted a little handmade sign in the window, next to the pumpkin decorations, that said "Yes, We Did!" What an exciting moment.
NYTimes on “Science of the Five Senses”
Rosanne will be a panelist on a new lecture series by the New York Academy of Sciences. The series, "Science of the Five Senses", connects leading scientists with artists in an exploration of their work. Rosanne will be appearing with psychologist Daniel Levitin on April 29, 2009. For more information on the series, read the NY Times article and visit the New York Academy of Sciences web site.
November 5, 2008: The Walls Come Down
Dear Friends,
I feel so ALIVE this morning! What a momentous day. I have been crying on and off for the last 24 hours, as the magnitude of this election and this moment in history sinks in to ever more subtle levels of awareness. A man who is the son of a white mother and a black father, a Christian who is the child of a Muslim, a Harvard graduate who came from limited means, a community organizer and a Constitutional scholar, young, dignified, intelligent, articulate and a born diplomat—Barack Obama is the new America. He is the exact person the world needs right now, and the perfect symbol of unity. He is the synthesis of why and how this nation was founded, what we longed for, and what we are becoming.
He has a tremendously difficult task ahead, and he needs us, whether we voted for him or not. Cynicism is the most dangerous and destructive poison for us at this moment, and a desire for unity the impulse that can bring real change. The wall came down in Berlin because Germany wanted to be one country, and the walls can come down here—between red and blue, South and North, black and white, Christian and atheist, young and old—if we want it.
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." –Goethe
Love from Mrs L, in the Striped Zone
Wednesday, October 29
We had our first real cold day in the city yesterday and it was fun to see everyone break out their winter duds. I have made an informal observation over the years about who really dresses for the weather, and who rebels against appropriate cold-weather garb. If I want to know how cold it is, and how to dress, I look out my window and watch passers-by for a few minutes to get my cue. Just opening the door and sticking my hand out never works, because once I’m out for a few minutes it is always colder than I thought. Okay, here comes a young, straight man, wearing a hoodie. No, can’t trust him. I’ll freeze to death. Teenage girl in a mini-skirt and Ugg boots with only a scarf for warmth? Are you kidding? I’ll have pneumonia by 4 pm. Pizza delivery guy? Shirtsleeves. Right, he just ran out of the restaurant and didn’t bother putting a jacket on. No reliable information there. Okay, here comes the exact right person for my weather info: a mom pushing a stroller. She AND the baby have on coat, scarf, gloves and a hat. Thank you, Mom! I’ll be toasty all day.
Wednesday, October 22
Because the euro is so strong and the dollar so weak, the city is overrun with foreign tourists right now, all laden down with shopping bags. I see plenty of signs in store windows that say ‘Euros accepted’. I even saw one sign that said, ‘Euros ONLY’. I won’t mention any names. You know who you are, nice antique store. My daughter and I were in Bloomingdales last month, going up the escalator and as we got off, we saw a tall, striking young woman with a thick Brooklyn accent hawking perfume where people were getting on and off the escalator. No one paid any attention to her, so she amped up the volume and, in full Brooklynese, said, "BONJOUR! CA VA! BONJOUR, PEOPLE!"
Cash Festival Is Front Page News
...in the Mississippi State University student newspaper. "I have to think my dad would bring a bit of defiance and humor to this," Rosanne said. "Maybe he wouldn’t repeat the public drunkenness, but the illegal flower picking is not out of the realm of possibility."
NY Times on the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival
October 19th: Dan Barry writes about the Starkville, Miss. festival in his "This Land" column in the NY Times. “I usually don’t make a habit of making pilgrimages to a place where my father spent one night,” said an amused Rosanne, who headlined the festival. More photos and Starkville history accompany the NY Times article.
Picks for October 2008
music: ‘The Essential Billy Bragg’. As a new fan of Billy, I am still familiarizing myself with his work, but two songs in particular are deeply moving to me at the moment: "Must I Paint You A Picture" and "Between the Wars". But it’s the whole package that really gets me: his activism, his passion, his truth and his Love. Count me in.
television: I know I am pathetically behind the times, but I just saw my first episode of ‘30 Rock’ on the plane coming back from Germany. I was laughing out loud and annoying my fellow passengers. Who knew Alec Baldwin was so funny? I came home and ordered the whole first season.
book: "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. really lovely, lyrical, sad, beautiful and real. Written in the voice of a old Jewish man who survived Nazi Germany. I’m in the middle of this, and enjoying it thoroughly.
$$: Scared of the stock market? Send your money HERE or HERE. It’ll do a lot more good.
Why I’d Be a Better VP than Sarah Palin
Published in TheNation.com, Oct. 10: “I’d like to formally submit myself to replace Sarah Palin on the GOP ticket. I feel confident that John McCain will see that the very attributes he desired in his VP choice can be met, and even exceeded in some areas, by me.
I stepped into an elevator which was full of seven or eight African-American women, all leaning over a stroller and cooing at an adorable, pudgy-cheeked, wide-eyed African-American baby, who looked to be about 2 years old.
Her mother kept saying gently, "Tell them your name. Tell them your name," but the baby would not comply. The elevator door opened and all the ladies started to walk out and suddenly the baby bellowed, in a voice loud enough to fill a ball park, "MY NAME IS BARACK OBAMA!" Everyone broke into peals of laughter. I leaned over and said to the baby, ‘So, you’re going to be president!" and she bellowed back, "YES!"
Rosanne Guests on “Spectacle,” Elvis Costello’s new TV show
January 21, 2009: The Sundance Channel will air the 8th episode of "Spectacle," with Rosanne, Kris Kristofferson, John Mellencamp and Norah Jones. Modeled on the "guitar pulls" held in Johnny Cash’s living room in Tennessee, each singer/songwriter brings new songs and new versions of old hits to the program. Taped live at the Apollo Theater in NYC in September. More details on the Sundance web site: also see Jim Farber’s article in the Daily News.
I know it’s summer when the old guy in the building next door parks his plastic lawn chair on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building sometime after lunch, and sits there for the entire afternoon watching the traffic and the passersby as if he is watching the waves and boats from the seashore. And I know it’s Fall when he stops bringing his plastic chaise outdoors and he becomes just another sidewalk surfer, head down and jacket zipped all the way up as he trudges down the street. It’s Fall.
October 4, 2008: Post from Bochum, Germany
Dear Friends,
When you are in a pure zone of inspiration, it’s good to document it so that down the road, when those creative walls appear, and nothing is flowing and nothing feels right, you can remember that zone and know if it existed then, it can exist again.
I am in Germany at the Century of Song festival, with Joe Henry, Billy Bragg and a team of superb musicians. We have had rehearsals all week, and last night was our first performance, at an amazing industrial warehouse that was an ammunitions factory during World War II, and which has been transformed and karmically cleansed by vast amounts of brilliant music and theater.
Right now, I feel like the luckiest worker bee in the world.
To hear Billy sing "Between the Wars" last night, on the anniversary of the unification of Germany, and hear his impassioned speech about unity, love and our ability to transcend our instincts for polarity and division, was a moment I won’t forget. Billy makes me want to be my better self. And Joe pulled this all together, in the most graceful way possible. He makes ten months of work and organizational requirements that would be daunting to a general look easy, and he is so deeply musical that it is a constant joy to be around him.
Billy, Joe and I closed the show with my dad’s "I Still Miss Someone", in three part harmony, followed by a medley of "Tupelo Honey", "Girl From the North Country" and "People Get Ready". Our three voices are so very different, and yet somehow really perfect together. The final song of the night was "One Too Many Mornings" and I heard audible gasps from the audience at the end of the song. I felt like gasping myself, there was something so genuinely moving and immediate about this off-the-cuff version, with each of us taking a verse.
Rhythm and Light. Grace and a backbeat. It’s all here in Bochum. Who would have known?
Tomorrow night is the second and final show. As a fan, I’m thrilled to know I get to hear Joe and Billy again. As a performer, to have a chance to do this once more is a boon, a mitzvah. A little miracle. I was getting so discouraged, so beaten down by the constant and shrill antagonism of our current election cycle—the division, the finger-pointing, the sarcasm and lies—that it is a tremendous relief to hear the silence of unity, and music that comes straight from the heart and soul. THIS is what is important to me.
DATE: Friday, November 21 8 PM Free but requires tickets: available from TicketMaster for a nominal service charge, (202) 397-7328; (703) 573-7328; (410) 547-7328; and www.TicketMaster.com
LOCATION: Coolidge Auditorium Thomas Jefferson Building, ground floor 10 First Street, S.E. Washington, DC
4th Annual New York City Bluegrass and BBQ Benefit info/tix
DATE: Monday, November 10 7 PM to 9 PM Tickets $85 per person BBQ and all the fixin’s will be served LOCATION: Crash Mansion 199 Bowery (at Spring Street) New York, New York 865.523.5783
4th Annual Bluegrass and BBQ New York Benefit for the Appalachian Community Fund, featuring a live performance by Rosanne Cash. Join us in Celebrating and Strengthening Work for Social Justice in Central Appalachia with Bluegrass and BBQ at the 4th Annual New York City Benefit with Rosanne Cash on Monday, November 10, 2008, 7 PM to 9 PM. BBQ and all the fixin’s will be served
The 28th Annual Lennon Tribute: A Celebration of Theatre, Dance and Music to Benefit World Hunger Year. With performances by Rosanne Cash, Cliff Eberhardt, Vance Gilbert, Carrie Rodriguez, The Kennedys, Erin Mckeown, Karlus Trapp, Wendy Osserman Dance, Dietz Marchant Dance & Tribute creator Joe Raiola. Proceeds benefit World Hunger Year, the grassroots organization dedicated to finding solutions to hunger and poverty, founded in 1975 by Bill Ayres and folksinger Harry Chapin. Article, NY Times
Tuesday, September 23
a memory: when my son was three years old, he went to the library with a group of kids and two other moms. One of the moms was showing the kids the globe of the world and pointing out different countries. She asked my son, a native New Yorker who has never lived above 23rd Street, "Do you know what country you live in?" He stuck out his chest proudly. "I live in the country of DOWNTOWN!" he said. Still true.
Rosanne Guests on Elvis Costello’s New TV Show, “Spectacles”
Rosanne is a guest on the 11th episode of "Spectacles," a new music and talk show premiering on the Sundance Channel in December. The TV taping was held on September 15 at the historic Apollo Theater in New York City. Host Elvis Costello also welcomed guests Kris Kristofferson, Norah Jones and John Mellencamp. More about the show in the Press Release
Saturday, September 13
A car alarm directly across the street from my living room window went off for forty-five minutes before I called 311, the city services hotline. First, however, I taped a note to the window of the car saying, ‘YOUR CAR ALARM IS STUCK! PEOPLE LIVE IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD!’. Within 10 minutes of calling 311, a squad car was there, and one of New York’s finest was writing a ticket. I walked across the street. "Hi, I’m the one who called." The officer looked up. "Are you also the one who wrote the nice note taped to the window?" "Yes, I am!" I said. "But I did restrain myself from throwing eggs." The officer told me to call 311 again and have the car towed, since they couldn’t turn it off. I went inside and told my daughter what he said. "But mommy," she said, ‘If you have their car towed, you’ll ruin their day." True. I didn’t call 311 back. The alarm stopped about ten minutes later.
Picks for September 2008
book: "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher", by Kate Summerscale. This book is far outside of my usual literary preferences. It’s a detective mystery, about a real murder of a three-year-old child, which took place in Road, England in 1860. The book is about the rise of the private detective, in particular Mr. Whicher, who was a talented and responsible detective in Victorian England, and whose career was ruined by this case. So many later books, plays and even films, many years later, were based on this story, which mesmerized and horrified the public and really shook the foundations of society. Everything that was thought about the privileged upper class, the privacy of the country home and the stereotypes of familial relationships, was turned on its head by this unspeakable murder. Summerscale is a deft writer, and doesn’t use prurient manipulation to draw the reader in. She is respectful of the real child who lost his life, and deeply sympathetic to Detective Whicher, who was ultimately vindicated in his theories. I really enjoyed this, although I found if I read it right before bed I couldn’t fall asleep for quite awhile. television: the US Open. Oh, how I adore Roger Federer, let me count the ways: his absolute perfect integration of power and elegance, confidence and humility, perseverance and relaxation and agility and stamina. It’s an honor and a thrill to watch one of the top five athletes in the entire world play at the top of his game. Long may he reign. And big props to Andy Roddick. I love watching him play as well. He’s like a steam engine. Also I am impressed with Serena WIlliams. I had almost written her off. I thought the celebrity nonsense had ruined her game for good, but she made an incredible comeback in the last couple of years. She played like a machine. Very inspiring.
music: I’ve been listening a lot to the new Al Green collection, "Lay It Down". If there’s anyone who can do that sexy, yearning intensity in his voice better than the Reverend Green, I haven’t heard it.
gig (my own): I had so much fun playing Stephen Talkhouse on September 5th. It was just me and Mr. L, and man… I had forgotten how much I like playing clubs, and how much I like playing acoustically with Mr. L. It was a steamy, exciting night and they let my sweet daughter Carrie come in for the show, even though she’s a couple years underage. She requested ‘Pink Bedroom’, a song I haven’t performed in, oh, 15 years. It kills me how kids her age think the 80’s are exotic.
Friday, September 12
JRC 1932-2003 with love always
Show Tickets: Confirm Entry
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Apollo Theater, with Elvis Costello
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Apollo Theater: Performance and Interview, with Elvis Costello
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Date:
September 15, 2008
Time:
Doors open at 6:45pm Doors close promptly at 7:30pm
Location:
The Apollo Theatre 235 West 125th Street New York City
Tuesday, September 9
September 11th: I sang at the memorial service at the World Trade Center site on the fourth anniversary of the attacks, September 11, 2005. The request had come from the Mayor’s office, and even the choice of song was specified. I sang "Danny Boy", a somewhat difficult song in the best of circumstances, but actually physically painful in the midst of a sea of grieving survivor’s families on that warm day three years ago. I will never forget it, and I will never forget that day four years earlier, how I watched the towers burn from the middle of Greenwich Street. My initial reaction, which still holds: No one should have to experience this, ever. Anywhere.
God bless the whole world, no exceptions.
“Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison”: Legacy box set with Rosanne interview
On October 14, 2008, Columbia/Legacy releases Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: Legacy Edition 40th Anniversary 2-Cd + Dvd Box Set. The set includes previously unissued tracks and DVD with interviews with Rosanne, Steve Earle, Merle Haggard, more. YouTube trailer includes excerpts from Rosanne’s video interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmve1IH7_bw
JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON: LEGACY EDITION DELUXE 40th ANNIVERSARY 2-CD+DVD BOX SET MAKES HISTORY WITH RELEASE OF – YES – TWO SHOWS!
RELEASED FROM THE ARCHIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME: • CD One: 65-minute first show –with seven previously unissued tracks • CD Two: 75-minute second show – with 24 previously unissued tracks • DVD: new documentary film – with exclusive Folsom Prison footage, interviews with Merle Haggard, Rosanne Cash, Marty Stuart, and former inmates at concert, and unpublished photographs by Jim Marshall
Six years in the making, first live prison recording by Cash – who identifies with convicts on “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Busted,” “Dark As A Dungeon,” “Cocaine Blues,” “25 Minutes To Go,” “I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail,” “The Long Black Veil,” “I Got Stripes,” “Green, Green Grass Of Home,” and more – Also, duets with June Carter and highlights by Carl Perkins and Statler Brothers
In-depth liner notes essay by Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, plus liner notes written in 1999 by Cash and Steve Earle
Latest entry in deluxe Legacy Edition series – available at both physical and digital retail outlets starting October 14, 2008, through Columbia/Legacy
“Each song Cash reeled off that day spoke his understanding of prison life – ‘Dark As A Dungeon,’ ‘I Still Miss Someone,’ ‘Cocaine Blues,’ ‘Send A Picture of Mother’ … Each song described confinement in some sense – in a coal mine, in love, in poverty – making clear to the men that they weren’t the only ones imprisoned. And between songs, he conversed with the men on their level, grumbling about wardens and dishing out off-color jokes.” – from the liner notes written by Michael Streissguth
It is one of those dates that is embedded in music history – and should be embedded in American history, if it is not already. January 13, 1968, the day that Johnny Cash and his crew – June Carter (two months before their wedding), Columbia staff producer Bob Johnston, Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and the Tennessee Three (guitarist Luther Perkins, bassist Marshall Grant, drummer W.S. “Fluke” Holland), rolled into northern California’s notorious maximum security lockup and gave a performance that changed Cash’s career arc and the future of popular music. Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, the LP issued on Columbia Records the following May, became a cultural benchmark in the midst of the single most tumultuous year in American history since the end of World War II. It was more than a record album – it was the turning point for a generation.
Forty years later, the Cash archives in Tennessee continue to dazzle researchers with their riches. In fact, as rarely known by even the most ardent fans, and rarely mentioned in Cash writings until now – there were two Folsom shows performed and recorded that day: The first show, the bulk of which comprised the classic, familiar 16-song album; and a longer second show, the bulk of whose 26 tracks (except for two songs) were put on the shelf.
JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON: LEGACY EDITION has been a long time coming, indeed. The revealing three-disc (2 CD+DVD) close-up of that day now presents the entire unvarnished 65-minute first show on disc one – expletives intact for the first time, and with seven previously unissued tracks; and the entire 75-minute second show on disc two, with 24 previously unissued tracks (out of 26). It’s topped off with a new documentary DVD – featuring exclusive footage from inside Folsom, interviews with Merle Haggard, Rosanne Cash, Marty Stuart, and former inmates who witnessed the concert, and unpublished photography by Jim Marshall.
JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON: LEGACY EDITION, the latest deluxe display-book box set entry in the Legacy Edition series will be available at all physical and digital outlets starting October 14th through Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
The broad popular acceptance of the original Folsom Prison – by country fans, hippies and hillbillies, the Rolling Stone and FM radio population, and liberal urbanites – turned Johnny Cash’s life around. Buoyed by its #1 country single title tune, the LP spent 92 weeks on the country chart (where it was #1 for 4 weeks) and 122 weeks on the pop side, was certified platinum, and chosen CMA Album of the Year. At the next Grammy Awards (in March 1969), “Folsom Prison Blues” won for Best Country Vocal, Male, and Johnny won Best Liner Notes. It set the stage (along with the follow-up success of Johnny Cash At San Quentin in 1969) for ABC television to offer him the prime time variety show series that catapulted him to superstar status. Over and above this recognition, for the next decade he was an outspoken advocate for prison reform.
The new FOLSOM PRISON box set complements Johnny Cash At San Quentin – Legacy Edition, released November 2006, the three-disc (2 CD+DVD) deluxe display-book box set chronicle of his follow-up prison concert of February 1969. FOLSOM PRISON offers one expansive 4,000-word essay by Michael Streissguth. He is the author of Johnny Cash: The Biography (Da Capo Press, 2006) and Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece (Da Capo Press, 2005), as well as the editor of Ring Of Fire: The Johnny Cash Reader (Da Capo Press, 2003). His other books include Voices of Country: Profiles and Interviews from the Golden Age of Country Music (Taylor & Francis, Inc., 2004), and biographies of Eddy Arnold (Pioneer of the Nashville Sound, 1997) and Jim Reeves (Like A Moth To A Flame, 1998).
“Nothing brushed Cash with darkness as broadly as At Folsom Prison,” writes Streissguth, “mostly due to its loud suggestion that Cash had done hard time. Could any listener be blamed for thinking it? Hadn’t he sounded devilishly conspiratorial with the men whom he entertained? Hadn’t they cheered him like a brother? Didn’t his voice sound gallows grave and the scar on his cheek look like a knife wound?… The Grammy-winning liner notes that Cash wrote only fueled the myth – ‘I have been behind bars a few times,’ wrote Cash. ‘Sometimes of my own volition—sometimes involuntarily. Each time, I felt the same feeling of kinship with my fellow prisoner.’ For the rest of his years, he uncomfortably lived with the myth, knowing that he’d conspired in its birth.”
The energy and excitement of FOLSOM PRISON is all about Johnny Cash’s relationship with those prison inmates and their regard for him, unfounded or not, as one of their own. He encouraged them to be uninhibited for the recording, and their raw spirit lifts every minute higher. Of the nearly 20 songs Cash performed at each show, with and without June, no less than half of them “spoke his understanding of prison life” (as Streissguth puts it). These included “Folsom Prison Blues” (with its memorable line, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”), Harlan Howard’s “Busted” (via Ray Charles), Merle Travis’ “Dark As A Dungeon,” “Cocaine Blues” (with the controversial “I can’t forget the day I shot that bad bitch down,” which was edited out of the Walk the Line movie), the gallows humor of Shel Silverstein’s “25 Minutes To Go,” the Everly Brothers’ “I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail,” Mary Buck Wilkin’s “The Long Black Veil,” Johnny’s own “I Got Stripes,” and Curly Putnam’s “Green, Green Grass Of Home.”
As mentioned, the bulk of the first show (which began at 9:40 a.m.) comprised the original LP. Segments that were not used – some announcements by old friend L.A. disc jockey Hugh Cherry, cameos by Carl Perkins (“Blue Suede Shoes”) and the Statler Brothers (“This Ole House”), “I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail,” and a duet by Johnny and June on Ray Charles’ “I Got A Woman” – have all been restored on this Legacy Edition. [The 1999 expanded edition restored “Busted,” “Joe Bean,” and “The Legend Of John Henry’s Hammer,” which were all previously unissued prior to that.]
Johnston chose only two songs from the second show to weave into the LP, Johnny’s “I Got Stripes” and his duet with June on “Give My Love To Rose,” both original compositions. But the producer felt that Johnny was struggling “to recapture the dynamism of the earlier show… even as his energy drained,” and so virtually the entire show was set aside. That included multiple cameos by Perkins and the Statlers, and multiple duets with June. Johnny did not sing any songs at the second show that he had not sung at the first show.
“Recorded days before the Tet Offensive in Vietnam,” Streissguth writes, “and a few months before the shocking assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the album’s performances and Cash-penned liner notes urged listeners to remember the caged men, much like King shone the spotlight on disenfranchised blacks and the voiceless poor. The album also tapped into the yearnings of late sixties music fans around the world who wanted from their music more viscosity, more depth, more reality, more rebellion. At Folsom Prison gave it to them – songs performed with unrelenting passion, a performer who would let nobody stand in his way, and a look at a failing prison system.”
JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON: LEGACY EDITION (recorded Jan. 13, 1968; originally issued May 1968, as Columbia 9639; first expanded edition CD issued Oct. 1999, as Columbia/Legacy CK 65955)
Disc One – Show One: Hugh Cherry 1. * Opening announcements Carl Perkins 2. * Blue Suede Shoes The Statler Brothers 3. * This Ole House Hugh Cherry 4. * Announcements and Johnny Cash intro Johnny Cash 5. Folsom Prison Blues 6. Busted 7. Dark As A Dungeon 8. I Still Miss Someone 9. Cocaine Blues 10. 25 Minutes To Go 11. * I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail 12. Orange Blossom Special 13. The Long Black Veil 14. Send A Picture Of Mother 15. The Wall 16. Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog 17. Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart 18. Joe Bean Johnny Cash with June Carter 19. Jackson 20. * I Got A Woman Johnny Cash 21. The Legend Of John Henry’s Hammer 22. * June’s Poem 23. Green, Green Grass Of Home 24. Greystone Chapel 25. Closing announcements
Disc One – Show One: Carl Perkins 1. * The Old Spinning Wheel Hugh Cherry 2. * Opening announcements Carl Perkins 3. * Matchbox 4. * Blue Suede Shoes The Statler Brothers 5. * You Can’t Have Your Kate and Edith, Too 6. * Flowers On The Wall 7. * How Great Thou Art Hugh Cherry 8. * Announcements and Johnny Cash intro Johnny Cash 9. * Folsom Prison Blues 10. * Busted 11. * Dark As A Dungeon 12. * Cocaine Blues 13. * 25 Minutes To Go 14. * Orange Blossom Special 15. * The Legend Of John Henry’s Hammer Johnny Cash with June Carter 16. Give My Love To Rose Johnny Cash 17. * Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog 18. * Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart 19. * Joe Bean Johnny Cash with June Carter 20. * Jackson 21. * Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man Johnny Cash 22. I Got Stripes 23. * Green, Green Grass Of Home 24. * Greystone Chapel 25. * Greystone Chapel Hugh Cherry 26. * Introduces Johnny’s father, Ray Cash and Floyd Gressett and closing announcements
*indicates previously unissued track.
Disc Three: DVD – Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison New documentary film includes exclusive footage from behind the walls of Folsom Prison, unpublished photographs by the legendary Jim Marshall, and new interviews with Merle Haggard, Rosanne Cash, Marty Stuart, and former inmates who witnessed the concert.
johnnycashonline.com legacyrecordings.com
Thursday, Sept 4
My husband, Mr. L, who is no fan of dog owners in the city (it’s a long and sordid history) went outside to take out the trash and saw a dog owner, a middle-aged woman, walking away from the nice pile her pooch had just left on the sidewalk in front of our house. Mr. L, being as polite as he could manage under the circumstances of living in a city of about 100 million dogs and sidewalks that we all share, said, ‘Ma’am! You forgot to clean up after your dog!" The woman turned around and screeched at him, "YOU SHOULD PROVIDE BAGGIES" and turned and ran quickly away. I am not making this up.
An Interview with Rosanne on New “Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison” Box Set
On October 14, 2008, Columbia/Legacy releases Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: Legacy Edition 40th Anniversary 2-Cd + Dvd Box Set. YouTube trailer includes excerpts from Rosanne’s video interview.
On October 14, 2008, Columbia/Legacy releases Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison: Legacy Edition 40th Anniversary 2-Cd + Dvd Box Set. Containing tracks released from the Cash Archives for the first time, the box set includes:
CD One: 65-minute first show –with seven previously unissued tracks
CD Two: 75-minute second show – with 24 previously unissued tracks (of 26)
DVD: new documentary film – with exclusive Folsom Prison footage, interviews with Merle Haggard, Rosanne Cash, Marty Stuart, and former inmates at concert, and unpublished photographs by Jim Marshall
In-depth linernotes essay by Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, plus liner notes written in 1999 by Cash and Steve Earle. Watch the YouTube trailer, with excerpts from Rosanne’s video interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmve1IH7_bw. Details, history and complete track listing in the press release.
Sunday, August 31
coming out of the subway on 14th St. and 1st Avenue, I hear a Hispanic lady talking to herself and she slowly climbed the stairs. I only understand a few words of Spanish, but I could swear she was saying ‘Ocho Dios… Ocho Dios...’. Doesn’t that mean Eight Gods? I was dying to know which Eight Gods she was praying to, or listening to, or checking up on. I must know. The Eight Gods of Harlem? The Eight Gods of Washington Heights? The Eight Gods of the Lower East Side? The Eight Gods of Mothers Everywhere?
August 29, 2008: Country Counseling
Dear friends,
I know you don’t care about ‘celebrity endorsements’. I don’t either. But I have as much a right to my opinion as any other citizen in this great democracy of ours, and here it is: Yes, we can.
I was so deeply inspired by Senator Obama’s speech last night and have thoroughly enjoyed what has been the most exciting convention in memory. He covered all the relevant territory, as far as I can tell: our dependence on foreign oil, the war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism, the economy, health care, climate change, women’s rights, and cronyism, or what he called ‘ownership’, in the White House. He provided a vision, and outlined truly thrilling possibilities for the future of our country. I have to admit that when the primary began, I was concerned about his lack of experience, but I have been thoroughly appeased in that anxiety by his grasp of the most complex issues, his ability to articulate them and his wise judgment.
I have some sadness about Hillary. I have been annoyed with her since her vote on the invasion of Iraq, but she has been through the fire and come out a champion. Her speech moved me to tears. I hope my daughters see a woman in the White House in their lifetime, and now I feel certain they will. (But I do hope it is not Sarah Palin, McCain’s choice for v.p., an anti-choice right-winger with very little experience in public office, and none in foreign policy. Also, let’s be blunt: John McCain is 72 years old. Both my parents died at the age of 71. In my world-view, McCain is beyond the wall of mortality. God forbid he becomes incapacitated or dies--do we want a 44 year-old with absolutely no foreign policy experience to be the leader of the Free World??)
The last election was virtually hijacked by Karl Rove and his team hypnotizing the conservative masses with the titillating mental picture of two men walking down the aisle. The world was going to hell in a handbasket, the Middle East was imploding, we had turned our surplus into a deficit, but… that image of two guys on top of a cake swayed the whole damn election. Everyone needs to grow up. That particular issue will take years to play out and eventually be decided by the states, not the federal government, in my opinion. Of course, the other issue that was used as a super-charged manipulation was abortion. I’m a pragmatist, as well as an idealist, so it boils down to this for me: Overturning Roe v. Wade will not eliminate abortion, it will eliminate LEGAL abortion. Do we really want to see death rate from illegal abortions climb back up to where it was pre-1973? And beyond that, do we want to take a disastrous ride down the slippery slope of nationalizing a woman’s body? If you take away her right to determine her own reproductive life, what’s next? Her entire sexuality? Then her right to vote, to drive a car, to dress as she pleases? If you want to see how that looks, I can think of a few countries for you to visit.
If I was in a relationship with my country, I would say that we need couples counseling. If I was a physicist, I would say that the current model has to disintegrate in order to re-assemble at a higher level. If I was a musician (oh yeah— I am a musician) I’d say we’ve been playing this song in the wrong key. Let’s start over, in the key of Obama.
Pick up your instruments. All together, in the People’s Key. Yes, we can.
much love from Mrs. L Democrat and Patriot
Wednesday, August 27
I was having one of those days, and one of those phone calls. I was in a taxi, in an intense conversation about what seemed an insurmountable problem. I started crying into the phone. A few blocks went by, and a hand came through the window between me and the driver, with a tissue. I took the tissue and the driver said, sweetly, ‘Calm yourself, dear.’ What a great city.
Tuesday, August 26
I got in a taxi on Broadway and 58th Street, going to 7th Ave. and 23rd Street, a straight shot downtown through Times Square. When I told the driver my destination, he said, "Do you want me to take the Queensboro Bridge?" "What? No, I’m going to SEVENTH AVENUE and 23rd STREET," I said, thinking he had completely misunderstood me. "Oh," he said. "You want me to take the Lincoln Tunnel?" His eyes twinkled in the rear-view mirror. I smiled. "No, no, just take the TIMES SQUARE BRIDGE", I said. The driver broke into guffaws. "All the years I make this joke, you are the first person to make a good joke back." He shook his head and looked at me in the mirror. "You are funnier than me." "I don’t think so," I said. "So what do tourists say when you make your joke to them?" I asked. "Aw, they always ruin the joke. They always say, ‘I don’t care which way you take me’". All the way downtown he was shaking his head and chuckling to himself. Several times he said, "You’re funnier than me." Several times I answered, "I don’t think so."
Home Page blurbs: summary is “Music”, body is “News”, extended is “Tour”
walking down 8th Avenue, a pushcart guy stands in front of his cart with arms outstretched and says, to no one in particular, ‘You don’t think from 2 o’clock in the morning until now is EARLY?!’ I’m still thinking about this.
Monday, August 25
A memory: When I first moved to Manhattan, in 1991, there was a great, legendary dive of a restaurant called Shopsins at the corner of Bedford and Morton Streets in the West Village. A family ran it, and they had about a hundred unbelievably delicious soups on the menu. Mr. Shopsin, the owner and chef, was notoriously bad-tempered and all manner of epithets and abuse came out of the kitchen. His wife took the orders, and his behaviour, with equanimity. She would let you go behind the counter and pour your own coffee after she’d seen you come in a couple of times, but she absolutely would not give up the coveted front table, which sat right in the window, for less than a party of four, even if the entire restaurant was empty. One day I took two of my daughters in for lunch and we ordered. My youngest asked for french fries. Mrs. Shopsin rolled her eyes and sighed and tapped her pencil against the pad. She shook her head. "Don’t piss him off," she said. We forgot about the french fries.
a memory, 1992: I got into a taxi in Soho late at night, raining, and when I got in the taxi the driver crossed himself, floored the gas and ran straight into a parked car.
Rosanne Cash returns in her popular musical talk-show series with singer/songwriter Joe Henry, and puts together the impermanence songbook.
Tonight’s performance marks the eighth "Acoustic Cash," a series of musical talk-shows hosted by Rosanne Cash. She made her Rubin Museum of Art debut on October 5, 2004, four days after the museum opened its doors. In the course of the first six concerts, Cash debuted songs that were to make up her 2006 album, the much-lauded Black Cadillac. Rosanne’s seventh “Acoustic Cash” performance was with guest Elvis Costello, on April 13, 2007.
In a career spanning two decades and ten albums, Joe Henry has deeply influenced American pop music. His songs are musical milestones of soul, jazz, rock and country. He has written music for diverse films, including Todd Haynes’s biopic I’m Not There and Judd Apatow’s comedy Knocked Up. As a producer, Joe Henry has worked with Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, Ani DiFranco, Mary Gauthier, Bettye LaVette, Mavis Staples, and Aimee Mann. In 2002, Henry received a Grammy for producing soul legend Solomon Burke’s Don’t Give Up On Me.
Mountain Stage in cooperation with WFUV 90.7 presents Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, Todd Snider and other guests TBA in performance at New York’s Town Hall
Monday, August 18th
A well-dressed guy comes up to me on the corner and starts in on an articulate, detailed and compelling story about how he is a designer who got locked out of his apartment and he needs ten dollars to..... "Wait a minute," I said. "This sounds really familiar. Oh, I know! You came up to me on this same corner two years ago and told me the same story!" He abruptly turned and walked away.
Columbia/Legacy Reissues Early Albums and A New Compilation
November 1st, 2005: Columbia/Legacy has released expanded editions of Seven Year Ache (1981), King’s Record Shop (1987), and Interiors (1990), plus a new collection spanning 1979-2003, The Very Best Of Rosanne Cash. Bonus tracks include previously unreleased live tracks and studio recordings, demo and b-side material, with new liner notes written by veteran journalists Chet Flippo, Geoffrey Himes, Anthony DeCurtis, and Alanna Nash.
“Rosanne Cash’s career was a touchstone over the years of the shifting attitudes of the national audience and media to country music and Nashville artists. She was an agent of change in that shift. During her reign, that attitude changed gradually from one of often-outright hostility or ridicule to one of a gradual understanding, followed by an embrace. Her thoughtful approach to the country music ideal and central theme – that of music centered on the verities of everyday life and its ultimate goals and values – focused attention on country music’s strengths and possibilities.”
– Chet Flippo, from his liner notes to the new expanded edition of SEVEN YEAR ACHE
Twenty five years after the release of her first album on Columbia Records – which debuted on the C&W charts one week after her 25th birthday – Rosanne Cash can reflect upon one of the most prolific and influential careers in music. The first decade and a half of that career, encompassing seven unique studio albums (and her first ‘Hits’ package), took place at Columbia Records, where Rosanne’s tumultuous life and times played out on the world stage for everyone to witness – ups, downs and in-betweens.
Scheduled to arrive in stores November 1st on Columbia/Legacy, a division of Sony BMG, are newly remastered expanded editions – each with bonus tracks and newly commissioned liner notes essays – of three studio albums from divergent times in Rosanne’s career, plus a brand new collection. These four titles comprise:
SEVEN YEAR ACHE (1981), Rosanne’s breakthrough second Columbia LP, produced by her (then) husband Rodney Crowell, with her first three consecutive #1 C&W hits (“Seven Year Ache,” “My Baby Thinks He’s A Train,” “Blue Moon With Heartache”), plus two previously unreleased bonus tracks (one studio, one live) [buy]
KING’S RECORD SHOP (1987), the fifth album, with its record-setting four consecutive #1 C&W hits (“The Way We Make A Broken Heart,” “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” “If You Change Your Mind,” “Runaway Train”), plus three bonus tracks including a single B-side and two previously unreleased live tour-band numbers [buy]
INTERIORS (1990), Rosanne’s first self-produced album, a dark and introspective song cycle of the dissolution of her marriage, whose most affecting songs still haunt today – “Dance With the Tiger,” “Real Woman,” “On The Inside,” “What We Really Want,” “Paralyzed” – plus four bonus tracks, two of them previously unreleased [buy]
THE VERY BEST OF ROSANNE CASH (2005), her first newly remastered collection in a decade – and most extensive CD package available today – 16 tracks, including 10 C&W chart hits (with six #1’s), five well-chosen album tracks (including cuts from her first two Capitol releases – and Johnny Cash’s final vocal duet, on “September When It Comes”), and one previously unreleased alternate version [buy]
The four albums precede the scheduled release on January 24, 2006, of Rosanne’s third album for Capitol Records, entitled Black Cadillac. The new studio album is dedicated to her father Johnny Cash (who died on September 12, 2003), her stepmother June Carter Cash (who died on May 15, 2003), and her mother (Johnny’s first wife) Vivian Liberto (who died on the day of Rosanne’s 50th birthday, May 24, 2005).
Album Notes and Track Listings
Track by track information on the new releases.
SEVEN YEAR ACHE
Rosanne’s second Columbia LP broke every rule – it was a rock-influenced album as Chet Flippo emphasizes, that didn’t rely exclusively on Nashville songwriters for its tunes, and was recorded in Los Angeles with studio musicians (including Booker T. Jones, Albert Lee, Tony Brown) augmenting her and Rodney’s band the Cherry Bombs (including guitarists Hank DeVito and Jerry McGee, bassist Emory Gordy, and drummer Larrie Londin). Beyond that, it was in the right place at the right time, and positioned Rosanne as THE new voice at a critical juncture – the mainstreaming of punk rock’s ethical rejection of corporate pop coming head-to-head with the aging crossover of Nashville underground’s ‘outlaw country’ movement. 26-year old Rosanne was savvy and rocked, yet was grounded in the traditionalism she inherited from her father, and it all came out on SEVEN YEAR ACHE.
An album is only as good as its songs, and SEVEN YEAR ACHE’s trifecta of #1 C&W hits took off with Rosanne’s original title tune, which resonated with the new demographic of radio listeners as it gradually rose to the top of the chart 13 weeks after its debut. The second single, songwriter Leroy Preston’s “My Baby Thinks He’s a Train” (the first of many ‘train’ songs that have populated Rosanne’s discography) took 10 weeks to build up to #1, followed by another Rosanne original, “Blue Moon With Heartache” (12 weeks to #1). But Rosanne and Rodney had crafted an album with no filler, as evidenced by the balance of the tracks: Keith Sykes’ “Rainin’” and “Only Human,” Steve Forbert’s “What Kinda Girl,” Merle Haggard/Red Simpson’s “You Don’t Have Very Far to Go,” the Crickets’ Glen D. Hardin/Sonny Curtis song “Where Will the Words Come From,” Tom Petty’s “Hometown Blues,” and the Hank DeVito/Rodney Crowell song “Can’t Resist.” The LP reached #1 in June 1981, three months into its 14 month reign on the C&W chart. The two previously unreleased bonus tracks on this expanded edition include “The Feeling” (from the original sessions); and a live 1993 tour-band version (with Rosanne’s future husband John Leventhal on guitar and backing vocals, and future Bob Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell) of “Seven Year Ache.”
Seven Year Ache (Columbia/Legacy CK 86997, originally issued in March 1981, as Columbia 36965) Tracks: 1. Rainin’ • 2. Seven Year Ache (C&W #1) • 3. Blue Moon With Heartache (C&W #1) • 4. What Kinda Girl? • 5. You Don’t Have Very Far To Go • 6. My Baby Thinks He’s A Train (C&W #1) • 7. Only Human • 8. Where Will The Words Come From? • 9. Hometown Blues • 10. I Can’t Resist Bonus tracks: 11. The Feeling (previously unreleased, from the original album recording sessions) • 12. Seven Year Ache (previously unreleased, live in Boulder, CO, July 17, 1993, on the “E-Town” radio show).
KING’S RECORD SHOP
After the wildly successful SEVEN YEAR ACHE, Rosanne and Rodney returned to Nashville to record 1982’s Somewhere In the Stars. The former turned out to be a hard act to follow – the latter did not reach #1, nor did any of its singles (“Ain’t No Money,” “I Wonder,” and “It Hasn’t Happened Yet”). A three-year childbearing hiatus ensued, including the embattled year-long process of recording the Rhythm & Romance LP outside of Nashville, and mostly with an outside producer. Despite its radical power-pop shift, the album spun off consecutive #1 hits (the Grammy Award-winning “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” “Never Be You”), another pair in the top 5 (“Hold On,” “Second To No One”), and convincingly returned Rosanne to the #1 album spot, the start of a 72-week stay on the chart through 1985-86.
For her next album Rosanne returned to Nashville and Rodney returned to the producer’s chair, with a roots-rock grounded concept hinging on three songs, as Rosanne told Geoff Himes: John Hiatt’s “The Way We Make a Broken Heart” (which turned out to be the first #1 hit), the Sun-flavored cover of her father Johnny’s old “Tennessee Flat Top Box” (the second #1, featuring Randy Scruggs on guitar), and Rosanne’s original “The Real Me.” It was one of several songs on the album that detonated the taboo issue (in Nashville and C&W circles) of female empowerment, along with Eliza Gilkyson’s “Rosie Strike Back” and Rodney’s “I Don’t Have To Crawl.” The nature of a woman’s vulnerability was also given voice on two Rosanne originals, “Somewhere Sometime” and “If You Change Your Mind” (the third #1, co-written with Hank DeVito) and pianist Benmont Tench’s (of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers) “Why Don’t You Quit Leaving Me Alone.” The metaphor of “a marital crisis that is quickly careening out of control,” as Himes describes John Stewart’s “Runaway Train” (the fourth #1, which set a C&W chart record for female artists) further distanced Rosanne from the Nashville establishment.
Though KING’S RECORD SHOP missed the top spot (peaking at #6), it stayed on the C&W chart for two years (103 weeks), a time in which Randy Travis and George Strait had a virtual stranglehold on the chart. Bonus tracks on this expanded edition include “707” written by Memphis English professor John Kilzer (who wrote “Green, Yellow And Red”) which was the non-album B-side of “The Way We Make A Broken Heart”; and previously unreleased live tour-band versions (with Leventhal and Campbell) of “Runaway Train” in 1991, and “Green, Yellow And Red” in 1993.
King’s Record Shop (Columbia/Legacy CK 86994, originally issued in July 1987, as Columbia 40777) Selections: 1. Rosie Strike Back • 2. The Way We Make A Broken Heart (C&W #1) • 3. If You Change Your Mind (C&W #1) • 4. The Real Me • 5. Somewhere Sometime • 6. Runaway Train (C&W #1) • 7. Tennessee Flat Top Box (C&W #1) • 8. I Don’t Have To Crawl • 9. Green, Yellow And Red • 10. Why Don’t You Quit Leaving Me Alone Bonus tracks: 11. 707 (single B-side; also released on Rosanne Cash – Retrospective, CK 67321, 1995) • 12. Runaway Train (previously unreleased, live in Toronto, April 3, 1991, on CBC radio’s “Hot Ticket”) • 13. Green, Yellow And Red (previously unreleased, live in Boulder, CO, July 17, 1993, on the “E-Town” radio show).
INTERIORS
After the release of KING’S RECORD SHOP, with its ensuing chart-run and tour support, another relatively lengthy hiatus took place, interrupted only by Hits 1979-1989. Among its dozen tunes were eight (of her 11) #1 C&W hits, including a brand new cover of the Beatles’ “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party,” Rosanne’s final #1 (or top 30 hit, for that matter), and a bittersweet portent of things to come. In the midst of her marriage to Rodney Crowell disintegrating by degrees, the songs that Rosanne was writing in 1989 and 1990 were painful portraits of disillusion and betrayal, stoked by a weary anger for which there was no cure. She laid bare her soul on INTERIORS, an album whose ten songs she wrote (or co-wrote) and produced (or co-produced) during a time when she seemed unable to extricate herself from the aching loneliness and dysfunction that surrounded her, which ultimately resulted in her divorce from Rodney in 1992.
Within her emotional unraveling, however, Rosanne created an album that spoke to her most faithful listeners (who sent it up as far as #23, for a half-year stay on the C&W album chart), even if it totally spooked the C&W powers-that-be at radio and tv. In fact, the album is a confessional song-cycle, from the opening “On The Inside” to the haunting closer, “Paralyzed,” a beautifully demonic piece set off by the arco contrabass of Edgar Meyer, the violin of Mark O’Connor (who plays throughout the album), and John Jarvis on piano and keyboards. “Dance With The Tiger” was co-written with John Stewart (whose “Runaway Train” was an early storm warning three years prior). Most amazing is Rodney’s presence – as the co-writer of “Real Woman” and singing with Rosanne in “On The Surface” and “What We Really Want.” A promotional CD of the album included two extra tracks, the hopeful “Portrait” (co-written with Keith Sykes, whose “Right Or Wrong” gave Rosanne’s first Columbia LP its title); and the epical “All Come True” (a favorite from World Party’s debut album in 1987). Two more previously unreleased bonus tracks fill out this expanded edition, a live tour-band version (with Leventhal and Campbell) of “This World” from 1991, and an acoustic demo-sounding version of “What We Really Want.”
Interiors (Columbia/Legacy CK 93655, originally issued in October 1990, as Columbia 46079) Tracks: 1. On The Inside • 2. Dance With The Tiger • 3. On The Surface • 4. Real Woman • 5. This World • 6. What We Really Want • 7. Mirror Image • 8. Land Of Nightmares • 9. I Want A Cure • 10. Paralyzed • Bonus tracks: 11. Portrait • 12. All Come True (tracks 11-12 from promotional CD Interiors: The Full Sessions, CAS 2182) • 13. This World (previously unreleased, live in Toronto, April 3, 1991, on CBC radio’s “Hot Ticket”) • 14. What We Really Want (previously unreleased, acoustic, recording date and location unknown).
THE VERY BEST OF ROSANNE CASH
This collection, characterized by Alanna Nash’s liner notes as “visionary and uncompromising,” eclipses the previous Columbia packages – 1989’s Hits 1979-1989 and 1995’s Retrospective – in several ways other than just the sheer number of its tracks, and the fact that it is the first new remastering of many of these songs in a decade. Ten of the 16 tracks are solid chart hits without which any Rosanne Cash anthology would be considered incomplete, including six #1’s. The balance is an inspired program of original compositions from Rosanne’s three most recent albums (which yielded no C&W chart singles), namely her final Columbia album, 1993’s The Wheel (“The Wheel,” “Sleeping In Paris,” and “Seventh Avenue”); and her first two Capitol albums, 1996’s 10 Song Demo (“Western Wall”) and 2003’s Rules Of Travel (“September When It Comes” featuring Johnny Cash). Finally, there is the previously unreleased alternate version of “Never Be You” (from the 1985 Rhythm & Romance sessions), co-written by Benmont Tench and Tom Petty, and featuring Tench on piano and Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch.
The Very Best Of Rosanne Cash (Columbia/Legacy CK 86996) Tracks : 1. The Wheel (F) • 2. The Way We Make A Broken Heart (D, C&W #1) • 3. Seven Year Ache (B, C&W #1) • 4. Hold On (C, C&W #5) • 5. On The Surface (E, C&W #69) • 6. No Memories Hangin’ Around (w/Bobby Bare) (A, C&W #17) • 7. My Baby Thinks He’s A Train (B, C&W #1) • 8. I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me (C, C&W #1) • 9. Blue Moon With Heartache (B, C&W #1) • 10. Western Wall (G) • 11. Tennessee Flat Top Box (D, C&W #1) • 12. September When It Comes (feat. Johnny Cash) (H) • 13. Sleeping In Paris (F) • 14. Never Be You (C, previously unreleased alternate version) • 15. What We Really Want (E, C&W #39) • 16. Seventh Avenue (F).
Background
Rosanne Cash was born in Memphis on May 24, 1955, two months after Johnny recorded his first sides with Sam Phillips at Sun Records (with “Hey Porter”), and the same month he recorded his second sessions (with “Cry, Cry, Cry”). Three summers later, following his signing to Columbia, Johnny used his advance funds to move his family to the Los Angeles suburb of Ventura, where Rosanne grew up as the daughter of one of popular music’s most volatile and idiosyncratic figures. When she was 11, her parents divorced and Rosanne was raised in the Valley by her single mom.
After high school graduation in 1973, she joined Johnny’s touring road show, beginning as a ‘wardrobe assistant’ (doing laundry!) and gradually making a transition to performing as a backup singer and occasional soloist. Rosanne learned “from watching her father on stage every night,” Nash writes, “and from sitting at the feet of step-grandmother Maybelle Carter and the matriarch’s daughters Helen, Anita, and June, who taught her songs as they waited to go on for the finale. She mixed that influence with the British pop of the Beatles and the Southern California rock of Buffalo Springfield, and knew she wanted to be a songwriter.”
After three years on the road, however, Rosanne chose to move to London, where she worked as a secretary at CBS Records and traveled in Europe. Returning to the U.S. in 1977, she thought she might become an actress, and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Hollywood for a year. On a trip to Germany in December 1978, Ariola Records requested a demo. Rosanne knew Rodney Crowell, “the Houston-born singer-songwriter and rhythm guitarist who had just left Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band,” Nash goes on, “who had contributed some of the most memorable songs to Harris’s groundbreaking records, with their organic synthesis of country, rock, and folk.”
The demo was recorded in January 1978, and led to a full album with Ariola. Though it has never surfaced in America, the LP was sufficient for Johnny to bring to CBS Records Nashville and get his daughter a deal with Columbia. Rosanne had begun playing out with Rodney’s new band, the Cherry Bombs, when they were wed in 1979, and started working on the first Columbia LP in Nashville. Rosanne’s actual U.S. chart debut was September 1979, when her duet with Bobby Bare on the Crowell composition “No Memories Hangin’ Round” (from the upcoming album) hit the C&W chart. The LP, Right Or Wrong, was released in early 1980, and sent up two respectable top 25 chart entries, “Couldn’t Do Nothing Right” (written by Karen Brooks and Gary P. Nunn) and “Take Me Take Me” (by Keith Sykes, who also wrote the album title tune). Rosanne was unable to do much touring, though, because she was pregnant with the first of her three children with Rodney. Still, the album was a critical and (semi-)commercial success, and set the stage for her real breakthrough the following year.
Liner Notes
Each one of the albums includes new liner notes by writers who’ve followed Rosanne’s career since she first emerged on the scene in the late-1970s.
Geoffrey Himes (KING’S RECORD SHOP) writes for the Washington Post, New Country magazine, and the Oxford American, among others.
Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis (INTERIORS) has written liner notes on a variety of artists ranging from Tony Bennett, the Beach Boys and Buddy Guy, to Junior Kimbrough , Talking Heads, and Simon & Garfunkel.
Alanna Nash (THE VERY BEST OF ROSANNE CASH), another veteran journalist and author, was the winner of the 2004 CMA Media Achievement Award, and the 2004 Belmont Book Award for The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley.
Friday, August 14th
I saw a white stretch limo pull up to the Barneys Warehouse Sale on W. 17th Street. Whatever they saved on that Prada jacket was spent on the gas for the stretch. Don’t you think?
Allentown Morning Call
August 15, 2008: "Rosanne Cash’s concert Saturday night at Lehigh University was nothing less than a soul scrapbook.... Cash sang cleanly and compellingly, with moonlit heartache and lullaby yearning." Read the review
Regarding the Use of My Father’s Name To Further Political Agendas:
August 15, 2008: It is appalling to me that people still want to invoke my father’s name, five years after his death, to ascribe beliefs, ideals, values and loyalites to him that cannot possibly be determined, and to try to further their own agendas by doing so. I knew my father pretty well, at least better than some of those who entitle themselves to his legacy and his supposed ideals, and even I would not presume to say publicly what I ‘know’ he thought or felt. This is especially dangerous in the case of political affiliation.
It is unfair and presumptuous to use him to bolster any platform. I would ask that my father not be co-opted in this election for either side, since he is clearly not here to defend or state his own allegiance.
SOS Children’s VillagesSOS Children’s Villages is an international non-governmental social development organisation that has been active in the field of children’s rights and committed to children’s needs and concerns since 1949. SOS Children’s Villages focuses on family-based, long-term care of children who can no longer grow up with their biological families. At SOS Children’s Villages and SOS Youth Facilities they experience reliable relationships and a stable family environment, and are supported individually until they become independent young adults.
The Cash family are long-term supporters of SOS. Johnny and June Cash donated property and financed the construction of a family house in Jamaica for SOS Children’s Village Barrett Town, and the family established a memorial fund that benefits the work of SOS Children’s Villages worldwide.
In 2004 Rosanne became a sponsor of a child in Burundi through SOS. "I am awestruck at their integrity and mission."
Children, Inc. Children, Incorporated is a non-profit international organization assisting children of all races and creeds, administering to their physical, emotional, and educational needs. It is the aim of Children, Incorporated to continue assisting and cooperating with other organizations and institutions throughout the world which are dedicated to the maintenance, support, education and welfare of needy children, and the maintenance and education of young adults seeking higher education, enabling them to become responsible citizens of the global community.
Rosanne has been a longtime sponsor of a child in Bolivia through Children, Inc.
PAX PAX was founded in 1997 to bring new and effective solutions to the problem of gun violence in America - a public health crisis that claims the lives of 8 children every day. Through innovative public health campaigns (ASK and SPEAK UP), PAX promotes practical solutions that all Americans can embrace - solutions that protect families and children and work immediately to save lives. The ASK (Asking Saves Kids), developed in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, urges parents to ask their neighbors if they have a gun in the home before sending their children over to play. The SPEAK UP campaign features the nation’s first-ever anonymous hotline, 1-866-SPEAK UP, for students to report weapon-related threats at school.
Rosanne is a longtime board member of PAX, and was honored at their fifth annual benefit gala in 2005 for her generosity and dedication to preventing gun violence in America.
Johnny Cash 1932-2003
Rosanne’s eulogy for her father at the Johnny Cash Memorial Tribute at Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN, November 10, 2003
My father’s integrity as an artist was the same integrity that informed him as a parent. When I was a teenager, I was lying on the bed in my room reading a book on astrology. My dad walked in and asked me what I was reading.
I handed him the book and said, "You don’t believe in this...do you?" He said, "No, but I think you should find out everything you can about it." That one comment became the template on which I later based my entire philosophy of parenting: trust...respect...and a wide open mind.
My father’s own wide open mind explored an immense universe of ideas...sound...beauty...mystery...love...pain and rhythm.
He offered that universe to us...as our birthright...to delight in our own treasures...and slam up against our own walls...always knowing that his love was close at hand.
His heart was so expansive and his mind so finely tuned that he could contain both darkness and light...love and trouble...fear and faith...wholeness and shatteredness...addiction and enlightenment...old school and post-modern...Baptist and Jew...the sacred and the silly...God and the void. But always and relentlessly with the backbeat and the rhythm driving the paradoxes.
Daddy was a tremendous energy source...a radiant center of love in our lives. I cannot begin to describe the enormity of the empty space he has left. A friend told me that your parents keep teaching you even after they are gone...and my sisters and brother and I have already found that to be true. He keeps pointing us in the direction of our best selves. His humble and luminous spirit resonates so deeply in our lives...and I believe it always will.
Because Daddy understood his paradoxes so well, he also knew that every day held a choice to be made. I cannot count the times we heard him say, "Children, you can choose love or hate. I choose love." So I tell you...and him...tonight, from our own wide universe of choices, Daddy we also choose love...and rhythm.
Rosanne at the Johnny Cash Memorial Tribute
Vivian Liberto Cash Distin 1934-2005
Rosanne’s column on the death of her mother, written in July 2005
I’ve been in a fog of sadness and reflection, and disbelief, since the end of May when my Mom died, thinking about her and all she was, and is. I went to the phone two days ago to call her to get my niece’s address, and then stood in shock for a moment, thinking of the vast repository of information my mother represented, and wondering who I would go to from now on when I needed to know someone’s birthday, or address, or the name of their new wife, or when their baby was due, or where exactly in the world any one of my sisters or their children were at that moment.
My friend Larry Kirwan just wrote a beautiful column on his website remembering his own mother, on the fifth anniversary of her death. He says that, ‘even the most searing of events settles into the broad mosaic of a life’. He sent the column to me as a gesture of comfort, and it was good to get that reminder. I know since losing my Dad that you can survive grief, that it gets easier after the first year, and that you start to take on the better qualities of your parents, if you want to.
I would like to take on some of my mother’s better qualities. I have been thinking about her virtues. She was a fierce mother, protective, passionate and proud. She had four daugh
The New York Times, Billboard, NPR, Nashville Scene Critic’s Poll and many others have named "Black Cadillac" in their lists of the 10 Best Albums of 2006
Magazine: the November 7th issue of Newsweek, right after the election, was stellar. "Secrets of the 2008 Campaign" was some of the finest reporting I read about the entire election process. These Newsweek reporters were bound to secrecy for the length of the campaign, and finally revealed what they saw and heard in this issue. Absolutely mesmerizing.
Film: I really liked the new Coen Brothers film, ‘Burn After Reading’, although it was a bit cold emotionally. I suppose I would watch George Clooney read a physics textbook without complaint. And Brad Pitt was hysterical. But let’s talk about 007. I can’t say that I’ve ever willingly sat and watched an entire James Bond movie in my entire life, but ‘Casino Royale’ was on pay-per-view a few nights ago, 
and I was tired, so I sat. I was completely taken with Daniel Craig. Why didn’t anyone tell me there was a new Bond, and he was this fine specimen of manhood who looks phenomenal in a tuxedo and gives the word ‘laconic’ a sexy definition? I really liked it, I have to say. Looking forward to ‘Quantum of Solace’. So glad it’s not all about the gadgets.
...in the Mississippi State University 
music: ‘The Essential Billy Bragg’. As a new fan of Billy, I am still familiarizing myself with his work, but two songs in particular are deeply moving to me at the moment: "Must I Paint You A Picture" and "Between the Wars". But it’s the whole package that really gets me: his activism, his passion, his truth and his Love. Count me in.
book: "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher", by Kate Summerscale. This book is far outside of my usual literary preferences. It’s a detective mystery, about a real murder of a three-year-old child, which took place in Road, England in 1860. The book is about the rise of the private detective, in particular Mr. Whicher, who was a talented and responsible detective in Victorian England, and whose career was ruined by this case. So many later books, plays and even films, many years later, were based on this story, which mesmerized and horrified the public and really shook the foundations of society. Everything that was thought about the privileged upper class, the privacy of the country home and the stereotypes of familial relationships, was turned on its head by this unspeakable murder. Summerscale is a deft writer, and doesn’t use prurient manipulation to draw the reader in. She is respectful of the real child who lost his life, and deeply sympathetic to Detective Whicher, who was ultimately vindicated in his theories. I really enjoyed this, although I found if I read it right before bed I couldn’t fall asleep for quite awhile.
television: the US Open. Oh, how I adore Roger Federer, let me count the ways: his absolute perfect integration of power and elegance, confidence and humility, perseverance and relaxation and agility and stamina. It’s an honor and a thrill to watch one of the top five athletes in the entire world play at the top of his game. Long may he reign. And big props to Andy Roddick. I love watching him play as well. He’s like a steam engine. Also I am impressed with Serena WIlliams. I had almost written her off. I thought the celebrity nonsense had ruined her game for good, but she made an incredible comeback in the last couple of years. She played like a machine. Very inspiring.
music: I’ve been listening a lot to the new Al Green collection, "Lay It Down". If there’s anyone who can do that sexy, yearning intensity in his voice better than the Reverend Green, I haven’t heard it.
gig (my own): I had so much fun playing Stephen Talkhouse on September 5th. It was just me and Mr. L, and man… I had forgotten how much I like playing clubs, and how much I like playing acoustically with Mr. L. It was a steamy, exciting night and they let my sweet daughter Carrie come in for the show, even though she’s a couple years underage. She requested ‘Pink Bedroom’, a song I haven’t performed in, oh, 15 years. It kills me how kids her age think the 80’s are exotic.
JRC 1932-2003
“Each song Cash reeled off that day spoke his understanding of prison life – ‘Dark As A Dungeon,’ ‘I Still Miss Someone,’ ‘Cocaine Blues,’ ‘Send A Picture of Mother’ … Each song described confinement in some sense – in a coal mine, in love, in poverty – making clear to the men that they weren’t the only ones imprisoned. And between songs, he conversed with the men on their level, grumbling about wardens and dishing out off-color jokes.”
SEVEN YEAR ACHE (1981), Rosanne’s breakthrough second Columbia LP, produced by her (then) husband Rodney Crowell, with her first three consecutive #1 C&W hits (“Seven Year Ache,” “My Baby Thinks He’s A Train,” “Blue Moon With Heartache”), plus two previously unreleased bonus tracks (one studio, one live) [
KING’S RECORD SHOP (1987), the fifth album, with its record-setting four consecutive #1 C&W hits (“The Way We Make A Broken Heart,” “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” “If You Change Your Mind,” “Runaway Train”), plus three bonus tracks including a single B-side and two previously unreleased live tour-band numbers [
INTERIORS (1990), Rosanne’s first self-produced album, a dark and introspective song cycle of the dissolution of her marriage, whose most affecting songs still haunt today – “Dance With the Tiger,” “Real Woman,” “On The Inside,” “What We Really Want,” “Paralyzed” – plus four bonus tracks, two of them previously unreleased [
THE VERY BEST OF ROSANNE CASH (2005), her first newly remastered collection in a decade – and most extensive CD package available today – 16 tracks, including 10 C&W chart hits (with six #1’s), five well-chosen album tracks (including cuts from her first two Capitol releases – and Johnny Cash’s final vocal duet, on “September When It Comes”), and one previously unreleased alternate version [
