Description

Nearly eight years after Rosanne Cash last released a set of original songs, 2014’s The River And The Thread finds her in a reflective mood, and just as 2009’s The List saw her looking back with a set of classic songs recommended by her father, the late country legend Johnny Cash, The River And The Thread is dominated by thoughts and emotions that occurred to her as she was involved in a project to restore Johnny’s boyhood home. This doesn’t mean that Cash has returned to the spunky, country-accented sound of her most popular work — this is still Rosanne Cash the mature and thoughtful singer/songwriter we’ve come to know since the late 90s, and the tone of this album is unfailingly literate. But though this music isn’t country, it’s certainly Southern, and road trips from Alabama to Tennessee, visits to the Tallahatchie Bridge and Money Street, and vintage gospel music on the radio embroider these songs as Cash immerses herself in the places that were once close to home as if she’s reuniting with long lost family. And two of the songs cut especially close to home — Etta’s Tune was written in memory of Marshall Grant, a longtime family friend and member of Johnny Cash’s band, while When The Master Calls The Roll is a tale of love torn apart during the Civil War that Cash wrote in collaboration with her former husband Rodney Crowell and current spouse John Leventhal — and they rank with the best material on the album, genuine and heartfelt, and written and performed with a genuine passion that never sinks into sentimental histrionics. The album is an amazing feat of musical storytelling and its sweeping in it’s breadth, capturing a unique, multi-generational cast of characters. While Cash and Leventhal found inspiration in the many musical styles associated with the South – swampy Delta Blues, Gospel, Appalachian Folk, Country and Rock, to name a few – this is a completely contemporary collection.

Track list:
1. A Feathers Not A Bird
2. The Sunken Lands
3. Ettas Tune
4. Modern Blue
5. Tell Heaven
6. The Long Way Home
7. World Of Strange Design
8. Night School
9. 50,000 Watts
10. When The Master Calls The Roll
11. Money Road