Covering two CDs and 36 songs, The Essential Rosanne Cash shows her artistic evolution over more than 30 years. "Can I Still Believe in You," a track from his first album released only in Germany in 1978, starts the album on a tentative note.
Cash quickly found her voice as a country singer on such hits as "Seven Year Ache" and "No Memories Hangin' Around," the latter a duet with Bobby Bare. Working with her husband Rodney Crowell as producer, Cash became a dependable hitmaker on the country charts in the 1980s with ballads ("Blue Moon With Heartache") and uptempo selections ("My Baby Thinks She's a Train").
Rosanne Cash.
Her music took on a more confessional tone in the early 1990s after her divorce from Crowell. "What We Really Want" and the title track to
The Wheel show an artist in transition. "September When It Comes," a duet with her father Johnny Cash recorded a year before his death in 2003, remains one of her most riveting performances.
With
The List, her 2009 album based on a list of influential country songs compiled by her father in the early 1970s, shows Cash returning to her roots. Like the best artists, she puts her own stamp on songs by Mickey Newbury ("Sweet Memories" and Don Gibson ("Sea of Heartbreak").
Icon Magazine is a print publication in New Hope, Pa. Learn more here.
