Rosanne Cash

Rosanne Cash – The Wheel (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 4, 2023 · Comments off

In 1990 Rosanne Cash was moving to New York City, divorcing Rodney Crowell, and looking for a songwriting partner. She reached out to guitarist John Leventhal who’d written songs and produced albums with Shawn Colvin, Jackson Browne and Crowell. Collaborating on songs soon turned to making an entire album, a budding romance and finally a marriage in 1995. The resulting album is an emotional whirlwind full of strong songwriting that chronicles the journey between leaving one marriage and getting into another. It’s headlined by the brisk, tuneful title track which features Patty Larkin and Mary Chapin Carpenter on background vocals. In “Change Partners”—with Benmont Tench from the Heartbreakers on piano—Cash goes full autobiography: “. Somehow I break free/ Someone becomes me/ And when I stand upright/ I’m filled with a new light/ I’m given one more chance/ So I change partners/ In this new dance.”

Cash knows how to use her voice to its best effect, which is most often an earnest alto that excels at low key duets—like the one with Marc Cohen on “Sleeping in Paris.” Originally recorded and mixed at several N.Y.C. studios, this 30th anniversary remastering has added a lot of audible clarity to the occasionally sonically-muddy-in-spots original. The midtempo gallop of “You Won’t Let Me In” has a new snap; the same is true for “Roses in the Fire.” “From the Ashes,” which also features personal lyrics (“I feel inspiration when all may be lost/ I claim resurrection no matter the cost”), has added depth in the new mix. After the improved sound, the other new additions are 11 live tracks taken from a 1993 Austin City Limits set and a stripped-down acoustic performance for the Columbia Records Radio Hour recorded that same year. A cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Crescent City” in the Austin set is a nice surprise. And her version in the Columbia performance of the melancholy “Seventh Avenue,” one of the first songs she wrote for The Wheel, is definitive.

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