Rosanne Cash, classic or dud?

Agreed -- "Halfway House" is top five Cash. "Never Alone" is another goodie (all the songs with "never" in the title are terrific).

huh, "Pink Bedroom" is a John Hiatt song. I don't know anything about his music.

She also covered Hiatt's "The Way We Make a Broken Heart."

yes, "Never Alone" is on now, and it's great too: a Vince Gill co-write. Earlier I listened to part of a bootleg from 1983 (I wanted to hear the cocaine in action) and Vince Gill sings backup on "Seven Year Ache". It's a good performance, pretty fast as you'd expect, and Cash sounds brittle.

Madonna would have done a nice "Never Alone", I think.

I still give KRS the edge for its variety of musical and vocal performances -- R&R's final "Never" song shows her trying too hard to rock -- but R&R is my second favorite, and certainly the last time she straddled country and what was left of New Wave.

I listened to KRS earlier today; I wanted to hear "Rosie Strikes Back", which is up there for me in her oeuvre, and then I couldn't stop listening.

"Rosie Strike Back", sorry

KRS is in my all-time-top-ten.

yeah I love that album a lot; I think it's a bit top-loaded but that's not a problem when the top is that heavy.

"Never Gonna Hurt" isn't that great a performance, but it has a nice double helix of a lyric. I'm guessing she wrote the lyric first, maybe with a rough melody in mind, and then trying to turn it into a burner didn't really work.

"Closing Time" isn't a great closer either, or rather doesn't have a compelling arrangement, but I suppose it ends the album on a happy note.

Now to Right or Wrong for the first time too.

Still haven't heard that one!

It's def. more a "classic" country album, rather than the New Wave-y fusion she brings soon thereafter. For instance, the song I'm currently on is called "Man Smart (Woman Smarter)", which kinda says it all.

ok, I get it now; King's Record Shop is an absolute masterpiece: razor-sharp vocals, & the synths are softer than they were in 1981 but the songs are as edgy, & deeper too.

The sound of "Tennessee Flat Top Box" doesn't fit the album, but the lyrics are right on: her dad was a pretty good songwriter, no? The song reads like "Seven Year Ache". Acc. to the Wiki entry (with a citation! so not so bogus perhaps), she didn't know it was her father's song when she recorded it.

Kings Record Shop would easily be in my top ten of all time.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, December 26, 2007

I've listened to it a bunch before, but this is the first time it's all come together.

"Somewhere, Sometime"!

Yeah, "Somewhere, Sometime" is as nervous as the best of 1981, but there's more weight to it than she could have pulled off in 1981 I think.

"Rosie Strike Back" is the one I play all the time.

4 country #1s from this album!

are the bonus tracks any good? I only have the original cd.

OK live tracks. "707" too.

I'm almost finished reading Rosanne Cash's memoir, which is fascinating. She's a really fine writer.

I'll bet that is really good! I'll add it to my list.

Reading the memoir now. I didn't realize she and her dad were always so close; I'd gotten the impression they only reconciled in the last ten years.

<3 her so much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX2nWIUWl2E

I 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.
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).

Some of the additional covers she did (which sounded better crafted than her her new stuff. Although since it was my first time hearing the new stuff I guess i need to give it another chance when the album comes out):
Long Black Veil"
"I'm Movin' On"
""Girl From the North Country"
"Ode to Billie Joe"
"Heartaches by the Number"

Among all the Southern Americana talk and lyrics, Rosanne briefly mentioned between songs that she was going "to bow to the audience after every song just like Elton John did when she saw him at the Garden last night"

So far, seems like new albums got three really good originals in the middle ("Night School" is awesome)(a fourth, "Tell Heaven", is a welcome stylistic exercise). Haven't received the two covers yet, by Townes Van Zandt and Jesse Winchester (might be some special edition). Looking fwd to her vocal presence x their songs, and wish she didn't depend so much on her own writing here --songwriting, that is; I got more from her memoir in the new Oxford American.I dunno; I'll keep listening. She's still got the voice, for sure.

I liked how some of the new songs sounded when Rosanne played them the second night of her residency at the Library of Congress, with hubby Leventhal on guitar, ex-hubby Rodney Crowell also on guitar and vocals, Amy Helm on mandolin and vocals, and Cory Chisel on vocals and guitar.
They also sang together "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "I'll Fly Away," and more.

Found out tonight that she released her first album in Germany only, even though three of its tracks later appeared on Right or Wrong (which is what I'd always assumed was her first album).

Listening to it now. She's still a little green in 1978 for sure, but it's totally decent work.

I've got her book. I guess I should read it sometime soon, huh?

So many books to read...I never got to this one either

anyone catch her four-night stint with Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams?

It was easy coming up with a top twenty-five.

i know people tend to take or leave interiors itt but idk, the line between it and king's record shop isn't so defined for me! "land of nightmares" and "paralyzed" give me end-of-the-world chills.

anyway i have a real hard time picking my favorite rosanne record between it, king's, and rhythm & romance

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/25/659621031/first-listen-rosanne-cash-she-remembers-everything

i am really enjoying this

last four songs are absolutely crushing

duet with elvis costello and kris kristofferson about gun violence kinda stops the album dead at track three but maybe i'll get used to it

Between Pistol Annies and Alex Anwandter I've forgotten Cash. What's the sound? No hope of hearing loud synths, right?

no of course not. sound is still trapped in interiors/the wheel. the writing is sharp as ever

Ends with a cover of that True Detective S2 "My Least Favorite Life"! (No synths.)

i keep wanting to make a poll for king's record shop but also wonder if anyone would vote

i also picked up her memoir when i was in nashville and i'm gonna read it as soon as i finish doctor faustus (soon) (i hope)

Just got “7 year itch” on vinyl and it’s great

Her memoir's good but like all eighties survivors she has different standards about what works: she's contemptuous of Rhythm and Romance, often to my ears her second best album.

i expect no artist to have the same ideas about their work as i do

The memoir's best when she addresses her dad. She's a solid writer.

Rhythm and Romance is the best new wave album.

Rhythm and Romance is the best new wave album.

hah yeah, I was just taken by "Never Be You" and of course listened to the whole album as a result, and now put it on again. Every song expresses anxiety from a distinct perspective. "lovers all have to stand trial" indeed.

The guitars here stomp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihyHTKqBU5Q

yes, that's the song playing right now on this second playthrough of the day. I'm guessing she wrote it after receiving "Never Be You" from Petty & Tench, since the choruses sound alike.

Never knew about her crazy health problems before she made The List. Also, did she ever find “The List”?

next album, but "Runaway Train" is so beautiful. I can hear Springsteen recording it...or even her dad on one of those latter day albums.

We haven't even talked about this one, a perfect song from the flickering synth to the conceit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4aQPFM1shc

I met Archie Shepp's son last week, but we did not discuss his father's upcoming birthday.

Her autobio, Composed, is exemplary for taking us through early life w formidable parents, sans psychobabble and excess melodrama, then her father astutely gets her a job w CBS Records in London, where she starts making her own connections. The rest is personal life as context for record life, and vice versa. It's exemplary, and she says her husband wants her to do a sequel, Decomposed, but it hasn't happened yet, alas.

Yeah, she takes us through, album by album, at just the right pace (ditto kid by kid).

Sounds like something I would like to read, thanks.