The List
The titular list here refers to a handwritten selection of country music songs that Johnny Cash gave to his daughter Rosanne on her 18th birthday. With this album she testifies to the power of her father’s gift. The lesson of *The List* is that a great song lends itself to interpretation by a multitude of singers, each of whom can tell his or her own story within the old structure. Hank Snow’s jaunty celebration “I’m Movin’ On” here becomes a sultry blues. The worn-out folk ballad “500 Miles” transforms into something ethereal and introverted. When she’s not reinventing a song, Cash’s faithful readings of “Take These Chains From My Heart,” “She’s Got You” and “Silver Wings” strike a neat balance between reverence and stylization — like a young woman asking the old gentleman at the party for the night’s last dance. Of Cash’s estimable duet partners, she is best matched to Bruce Springsteen, who seems to have an inherent grasp of the Everly Brothers’ bright harmonies, in spite of his grizzled voice. Illuminated by John Leventhal’s sparsely elegant production — reminiscent of T-Bone Burnett’s signature sound —*The List* is at once easy swaying and deeply felt.
If there’s such a thing as “Grammy bait,” Rosanne Cash’s new album The List would qualify. Cash calls on such famous friends as Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Tweedy, Rufus Wainwright, and Elvis Costello to help her perform covers drawn from a list of classic American songs, given to Cash by her famous father Johnny over 30…
After the dark and chilling themes of 2006's Black Cadillac, which saw Rosanne Cash dealing with the deaths of her mother, Vivian Liberto, her father, Johnny Cash, and her stepmother, June Carter Cash -- all of whom passed within a two-year span -- one might assume that her next project would move into an even deeper level of bleakness, but with The List, it's immediately clear that she has instead found a more measured place to stand, and it's a lovely and redemptive outing that looks back to go forward.
The album serves as an immediate reminder that Cash is among the most thoughtful, most intuitive vocalists of her generation.
Rosanne Cash's new album takes its name from a list her father prepared to provide his daughter an education in country music, via 100 essential songs...