I’ve been writing about Rosanne Cash a long time. Like Nick Lowe, she continues recording albums that appeal to a fervent base of which I’m no longer a part. I don’t blame her for no longer wanting to rock, but to my ears the staid arrangements of the last couple albums don’t justice to a voice that had the bruises and crinkles of an ordinary person’s; her songs need more color and kinetics than she and collaborator/husband John Leventhal are prepared to offer in 2017. My karaoke version of “Seven Year Ache” adds color and kinetics, I hope.
The only album not represented on this list is 2003’s Rules of Travel, which I don’t own.
1. Hold On
2. Seven Year Ache
3. Runaway Train
4. Blue Moon with Heartache
5. Never Alone
6. Rosie Strikes Bback
7. Halfway House
8. I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me
9. Somewhere, Somehow
10. Only Human
11. The Real Me
12. Never Be You
13. The Way We Make a Broken Heart
14. Black Cadillac
15. Dance with the Tiger
16. Somewhere in the Stars
17. Hometown Blues
18. Sleeping in Paris
19. Dreams Are Not My Home
20. Girl from the North Country
21. When The Master Calls the Roll
22. If You Ever Change Your Mind
23. It’s Such a Small World (w/Rodney Crowell)
24. I Don’t Wanna Spoil the Party
25. I Want a Cure
Humanizing The Vacuum 