Album Reviews

Though she's lived for decades in New York City, Rosanne Cash remains connected genetically, spiritually and otherwise to her southern roots. Cash was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1955 but in 1961 her parents moved to California. Rosanne remained there with her mother Vivian Liberto Cash and three sisters after the couple divorced in 1967.

Like many of her generation, Cash rebelled against her heritage to become a citizen of the world—a move made considerably more difficult than for some given her father Johnny's iconic status. She set out for Europe to establish her own career, later moving Nashville where she experienced great success, commercial and otherwise, as part of the "Neotraditionalist" alternative country movement. She married and later divorced country star Rodney Crowell, who co-wrote with Cash and Leventhal "The Master's Choir" and appears on it as part of "The Master's Choir" with Amy Helm, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine and Tony Joe White.

On her 2007 album Black Cadillac Cash pays tribute to her parents and to step mother June Carter Cash. This album's inspiration came not from mourning but from trips south that resulted from a project Cash was involved in to preserve and restore Johnny Cash's boyhood home outside of Memphis.

Cash and husband/producer John Leventhal took side trips throughout the south during these visits, that produced the songs and shaped the album's theme.

"A Feather's Not a Bird" is a song about connections and discovery. the second song "The Sunken Lands" deals with hard times. While most of the album is personal, the Etta of "Etta's Tune" is Etta Grant widow of Johnny Cash's bass player Marshall Grant. The song is about a long, warm, though sometimes lonely relationship, a life on the road and being away from home; "We kept the tickets and the reels of tape, To remember who we are."

"Modern Blue" is about the desire to escape, the pull of home and the comfort of a secure relationship. There are songs about home and faith, a song about a clear channel broadcasting gospel music ("50,000 watts") and one about the Civil War "When the Master Calls the Roll" that's the album's most affecting. The evocative song "Night School" set in Mobile draws the listener into the place with strong imagery, yet the pull of another time intervenes. The closer, "Money Road", which references the Tallahatchie Bridge made famous by Bobby Gentry is a stark finale that ends with the line "We left but never went away/Out on Money Road."

The often dreamy, "swampy" arrangements and the intimate, closely miked production by John Leventhal are tastefully populated with shimmering acoustic guitars, small string groupings and tasteful use of strategically layered background vocals. The music is appropriately country-like but not "country" per se, which is appropriate for observations made by an urban couple even if one has Memphis roots.

Those who proclaim that "albums are dead" need to experience The River & The Thread. Its coherent spirit and thematic consistency shatters that assertion. Cash's singing is supple and compelling, her story-telling true. Her father would be proud.

The record's sonics are very good for a modern production, with fine instrumental layering and a light hand on the processing, though the final product appears to have been compressed somewhat to sound "modern". Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering cut from high resolution files. The 180 gram pressing was quiet and well-manufactured from, I suspect Rainbo. There's a deluxe, signed edition available at the artist's website and a deluxe CD edition has some extra tracks not auditioned.

This album has received a great deal of hype. It lives up to it and then some. High quality music and album-making that's highly recommended.