Rosanne Cash Packs the Colonial
Featuring the List and Black Cadillac
By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 30, 2010
Accompanied by her husband, John Leventhal on guitar, Rosanne Cash performed to a full house last night at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield.
She was a long way from Nashville and its base in the Country Music world. Rosanne has deep roots in country as the daughter of the legendary Man in Black, Johnny Cash, and his first wife Vivian Liberto Cash Distin. She was born in Memphis on May 24, 1955. Her parents divorced in the 1960s and he married June Carter of the legendary Carter family.
Rosanne went on the road with her dad as a wardrobe mistress, then backup singer, and occasional soloist. When she was 18, because of his perceived sense of a gap in her musical education, Johnny gave her a list of 100 essential folk and country songs.
The list was set aside as she pursued the ups and downs of a rough life in the music business. As she aptly demonstrated on stage last night she has spent a rich and fulfilling career crawling out from under the long shadow of her father.
In 1985 she won a Grammy for “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me.” There have been nine other Grammy nominations as well as eleven number one country hit singles, 21 top 40 country singles and two gold records.
Her albums have charted the episodes in her personal life including the breakup of a first marriage that resulted in relocation to New York. In 2006 she released the album Black Cadillac which was motivated by the loss of her father and stepmother in 2003. While completing the album her mother died in 2005. The album was well received by critics. Last night she performed a number of songs from Black Cadillac as well as from The List which was released in 2009.
The audience applauded when she slipped in Pittsfield both in the lyrics of songs as well as the engaging patter that enlivened the set. Cash proved to be a warm, charming, easy and laid back performer.
Casual to a fault she occasionally forgot lyrics and stumbled through songs. She told a stunned John to just keep playing and that she would improvise something. Then it would come back to her. These mistakes were so natural and unaffected that they only further endeared her to the audience. They became signifiers of her humanity and vulnerability.
There was also an amusing interval when she struggled to tune her guitar. She wasn’t quite sure on which fret to place her guitar capo. She asked John for advice. “Is it the seventh?” Then she quite visibly counted to find the right one. “Guitar players always laugh at me when I have to count.”
Once that was done she tried to tune the guitar. She attempted to keep up a conversation with the audience while gripping the pick in her teeth. Cash related how she struggled to tune her guitar while performing solo at a daycare center in New York. “That was before I met you John” she said. “Eventually somebody came up out of the audience and tuned my guitar.”
In an intimate and tender moment John finally came over and wrapped his arms around her while tuning the instrument.
What she lacked in competence on the guitar he more than made up for. She only performed on a few songs preferring to bop about clapping time and moving in rocking dance steps. She conveyed the notion of having fun.
Of course the audience came to hear songs from The List. The album includes both obscure as well as familiar songs: “Miss the Missisippi and You” which he informed us before performing it that Jimmy Rodgers recorded on West 18th Street in Manhattan. She also sang “Motherless Child” which was recorded by Billie Holiday and there was an audience request for “500 Miles”. Other songs on the album include “Sea of Heartbreak,” “Take These Chains from My Heart,” “I’m Movin On,” “Heartaches by the Number,” “Long Black Veil,” “She’s Got You,” “Girl From the North Country,” “Silver Wings” and “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow.”
“My daughter recently released her first album” Cash said. “She called me and said ‘Mom when do I get my list?’ Perhaps one day her daughter will record an album and ask for a list and her daughter after that.”
Reflecting on that she discussed how once that you come up with a list of 100 songs what might come next? What would be an appropriate 101st song? How to include an important song that has been left out.
The audience was surprised and thrilled when she sang the opening lyrics of the Bobbie Gentry standard “Ode to Billy Joe.”
One of Cash’s greatest assets is the clarity, insight and passion of her singing. Not only could we distinctly hear the lyrics but in this case deeply feel them. Many of us in our hearts and minds sang along with the sad tale of Billy Joe.
“It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day/ I was out chopping cotton and my brother was balin’ hay…Seems nothing ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge/ And now Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge…”
As she sang the last notes of the lyrics Leventhal continued with solemn bluesy strumming. He tuned the guitar down ever lower sustaining a sinking bass note. The music literally fell off that Tallahatchie Bridge. It was a stunning moment. Another was John's superb picking on "Tennessee Flat Top Box." It prompted her to proclaim "Can you believe he grew up in New York."
What a marvelous evening of song. Hey Roseanne, y’all come back yah heah. You got lots of friends up in Pittsfield. Yeeehah.