Rosanne Cash - The River & the Thread

Her first original album since 2006. Carl Wilson wrote a strong defense but I'm unmoved. I want to love this because King's Record Shop is a top ten all-time for me (really), and I liked Black Cadillac, but after four listens this is boring in a worthy Paste Magazine way. Funny, though: discussing Pazz and Jop I just today castigated Brandy Clark's 12 Stories for its sepia sound, influenced by Cash's Interiors, a forgotten milestone in introspective country-influenced singer-songwriter rock; sharper and more tuneful than 12 Stories but no way Cash's best album.

I'll take your word for it.

eager to check this one out, <3 her, a high point of last year was seeing her do "7 Year Ache" with a full band on a tiny stage in a 150-capacity room...Jesus CHRIST her presence is something

Well, her voice still sounds terrific, particularly her tone.

7 Year Ache is such personal song for me, for many reasons. I saw her at Jones Country when I was a kid and it's one of my favorite memories. I'm happy to know she's still releasing albums.

7 Year Ache is such personal song for me, for many reasons

Ditto.

fabulous karaoke number too

I think it's a good record, sort of very NPR/T Bone Burnett-y. It's curious how after so many years of avoiding her family legacy/history her last three records or so have so tightly embraced it. Gettin' older, people dying, I guess.

The throat surgery improved Rosanne Cash's voice in the same sense that nose surgery improved Jennifer Grey's face.

I heard a great interview with her on NPR the other day, the backstory to this album is compelling. I queued up the "Essential" comp on Spotify and was rather impressed, especially with her recent work. The title track off "Black Cadillac" jumped out with it's dark and rough vibe. I'll be checking this album out shortly, love a good Civil War song-story.

I just read the Hilburn Cash bio, and afaict, just about every single person in the extended Cash clan - Cash, all his kids, June - had drug problems. Must have been a whole lot of mutual enabling going on. They almost all wrote books, too. I should probably read Rosanne's book.

Drugs:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/RosanneCashRhythmandRomance.jpg

^^ second best album too although in her memoir she calls its recording a fraught experience

The throat surgery improved Rosanne Cash's voice in the same sense that nose surgery improved Jennifer Grey's face.

she had brain surgery, not throat surgery, iirc

wait no I take that back she had some polyps removed in '02

Throat surgery did wonders for Roger Daltrey.

For some reason I totally missed out on Rosanne before recently. I always slotted her, for no good reason, somewhere beneath Ronstadt, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Nanci Griffith, and all of them well below Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris, who was my main focus. Of course, they were all no doubt peers/collaborators, which makes it all the more mysterious how I managed to overlook Cash for so long. No doubt in part because her father did indeed cast a long shadow.

Rosanne Cash, classic or dud?

More talk about this album and Cash on this other thread

Cash and guitarist husband John Levanthal recently traveled the southern states and spent time in Arkansas helping to restore the boyhood home of her father, Johnny Cash. She threw in all kinds of lyrical mentions of the south-- Emmett Till, Robert Johnson and the Crossroads, some ones I knew less about(a spot in Arkansas where there was an earthquake way back when).

ok I'm listening to this and absolutely loving it in terms of songwriting - like, A+ - but Josh above citing Burnett is OTM - it's not just him, either. It's the touches-that-code-as-"old" stuff in production that are hard to deal with because 1) they sound fuckin' good! it's kinda undeniable how good this music sounds recorded/arranged like that! BUT 2) it's kind of insulting! like it's telling the listener "you gotta listen this a certain way, with certain assumptions about sound" which all production does to some extent but...I don't know. I have issues with this production style, I shun it personally, but at the same time it feels weird to just reject it out of hand, because the songs sound so good.

still, I'd like to hear a less tinted production on these tunes - less reverbing tele pass in "the sunken lands," for Christ's sake less color in the snare.

I would bet money this stuff will just fucking SMOKE live.

I understand her not wanting to "rock" but this monochrome, polite exercise with few cool filigrees isn't sustaining interest; when it does it's Cash's vocals doing all the work.

I would bet money this stuff will just fucking SMOKE live.

I'll say this much: I've seen a few T Bone touched albums performed live (I know this is not one of them), and from Joe Henry to Plant/Krauss they sort of sound very similar live. I think Burnett (like Lanois) is one of those guys great at capturing live, natural performances, but sort of doing it the same way every time, with the same great contingent of session guys. It's a different sort of safe.

Lanois is good at capturing "live-sounding" performances.

It sounds ridiculous, I know! But if you've seen any docs with him in it, or seen him live, it's amazing how much of his sound is due to his musicians and his/their approach to the music. Like, Peter Gabriel and U2 and that stuff, sure, that's massively fussed with. But Emmylou Harris, Dylan and that sort? Pretty much band-in-the-room.

I said this on the other Rosanne Cash thread:

saw Rosanne and her band play her new album The River & The Thread straight through live at the Library of Congress last night, then they did songs from her last album The List.

The new album live was pleasant enough though it did not wow me.

I think one of the new songs sounded better the next night at the Library when Rosanne was performing with her husband, plus Rodney Crowell and Amy Helms

I need to listen to this. I worked a bunch with Roseanne's husband - Roseanne is a lovely lady, gracious and funny - in my studio assistant days and i remember JL ( as we called him) being into a very direct, dry style of recording. Maybe he's changed. Can't wait to listen.

wait no I take that back she had some polyps removed in '02

― combination hair (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 16 January 2014 14:02 (6 hours ago) Permalink

To unpack and degnome my gnomic comment, I'll say that the polyps --and the singing style that likely caused them-- were probably part of what gave character to her voice. The singing style has gradually reverted, but I do still miss that rich polypy goodness, much as I miss Jennifer Grey's old nose.

(I realize the comparison is flawed and the analogy is offensive. Sorry, Rosanne and Jennifer.)

I wish there was a button I could press to tell Youtube that I know a river runs through Rosanne Cash.