The Incongruous City

Mrs L sees and hears it on the streets of Manhattan

 

Black Cadillac Named One of 10 Best Albums of 2006

The New York Times, Billboard, NPR, Nashville Scene Critic’s Poll and many others have named "Black Cadillac" in their lists of the 10 Best Albums of 2006
Buy It Now | Album Sampler: Songs, Photos, Video, Comments from Rosanne

Minnesota State Fair, St. Paul, MN
Little River Casino, Manistee, MI

Southold High School, Southold, NY
The Bagdad Theater, Portland, OR
Dominican University of California, San Raphael, CA
Borders, Los Angeles
American Voices, Saban Theater, Los Angeles
Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA
Sam’s Club, Atlanta
Meredith College, Raleigh, NC
Philadelphia Free Library, Philadelphia
Sixth & I Synagogue, Washington, DC
Barnes & Noble Union Square, New York
The Big Tent, Falkland Estate, Scotland
SummerTyne Americana Festival, Gateshead, UK
Hartwood Acres, Pittsburgh, PA
Xponential Music Festival, Camden, NJ
Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest, Ottawa, Canada
Brooklyn Vegan, 7/6

Brooklyn Vegan, July 6:  Music Review, "Rosanne Cash played Governors Island on the 4th of July - pics & setlist"

Governors Island, New York, NY
Picks for July 2010
Trinity Wall Street Presents Rosanne Cash

New York, April 27, 2010 - Trinity Wall Street will present a free concert with Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash on Governors Island on Sunday, July 4, 2010. 

Village Voice, 6/30

Village Voice, June 30: Music Preview, "COUNTRY GIRL: It doesn’t get more American than Rosanne Cash"

July 1, 2010:  Mrs. L’s Monthly Returns
Biography

About Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash

About The List

"When I was 18, I was on the road with my dad. One day, we were sitting in the tour bus, talking about songs, and he mentioned a song, and I said, "I don’t know that one." He mentioned another one, and I said, "I don’t know that one, either." Then he started to get alarmed, so he spent the rest of the day making a list on a legal pad, and at the top he put "100 Essential Country Songs." And he handed it to me and he said, "This is your education."

“The List” Up for Album of the Year

The Americana Music Association announced the nominees for the 9th annual Americana Awards & Honors.  Rosanne’s "The List" is in the running for Album of the Year.

Kansas City Star, 5/16

Kansas City Star, May 16: Music Review, "Rosanne Cash pays tribute to country-music heritage"

Rosanne Performed a Free July 4th Concert

Those in the New York City area took the ferry to Governors Island for a free Independence Day show.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/20

The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 20 - "Rosanne Cash: Strong songs by her and her father"

Get an Inside Look at Rosanne’s New Memoir

The artist’s forthcoming memoir, Composed, will be released on August 10.  Find out more about the book, including book tour dates and pre-order options.

NPR Broadcast Rosanne Cash Special

A new Rosanne Cash radio special is now available on NPR.ORG and will be broadcast by various stations throughout the summer. Check your local listings.

Rosanne Held a Live Twittercast

Rosanne revealed her favorite Top Ten Memphis songs, in a "live" Twittercast, Wednesday April 14th.

Rosanne Appeared on Imus in the Morning

Rosanne appeared on Imus in the Morning on nationally syndicated radio and on Fox Business Network. Watch video online.

Rosanne Performed on Acoustic Cafe

Rosanne appeared on the radio show Acoustic Cafe.  Listen online.

iProng Magazine, 2/2

iProng Magazine, February 2:  "Rosanne Cash interview"

Harris Theater, Chicago
W. Carrol Coyne Center for the Performing Arts, Syracuse, NY
Syracuse.com, 1/27

Syracuse.com, January 27:  Listen Up Blog, "Rosanne Cash provides a big time at tiny Le Moyne College theater"

City Winery, New York

Ann Arbor Folk Festival
Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN
The Englert Theater, Iowa City
Salt Lake Magazine, 1/11

Salt Lake Magazine, January 11:  "Concert Review:  Rosanne Cash in Park City"

Secret City Benefit, New York
The Egg, Albany, NY
Nalen, Stockholm, Sweden
Trädgår’n, Göteborg, Sweden
KB, Malmo, Sweden
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale
Aquarius Casino and Resort Amphitheater, Laughlin, NV
Duke University, Chapel Hill NC
Scottish Rite Theatre, Collingswood, NJ
Poetry and the Creative Mind, Lincoln Center, New York
NPR On Location, Paramount Theatre, Seattle, WA
Folly Theater, Kansas City, MO
Colonial Theatre, Pittsfield, MA
1/12: The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien

Rosanne performed on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on January 12.  In case you missed it, watch the video.

1/14:  Tavis Smiley Show

Rosanne appeared on PBS’ Tavis Smiley Show. Watch video of the interview and acoustic performance.

Handwritten Lyrics of "Black Cadillac" Up for Auction

The Americana Lyrics auction offers a chance to win Rosanne’s original work.

“The List” One Of Most Critically Embraced Albums Of The Year: Rosanne on “Late Late Show” 12/8

(November 30, 2009 - New York, NY)  As critics begin to compile their annual Top 10 year-end round-ups, The List - the stunning covers collection from acclaimed singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash is emerging as one of the best reviewed albums of 2009. 
Having already performed on NBC’s The Today Show and CBS’s The Late Show With David Letterman, and been featured on ABC’s highly rated prime-time TV special “In The Spotlight With Robin Roberts: Bright Lights. Big Stars. All Access Nashville,” Cash will perform on CBS’s The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on December 8th.

Rosanne Cash Nominated For 2010 Grammy Award For “Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals”

December 4th, 2009 — New York, NY — Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash has been nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for “Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals” for “Sea of Heartbreak,” a duet with Bruce Springsteen that appears on her critically acclaimed album The List. This is Cash’s ninth career nomination.

Grammy Nomination for “Sea of Heartbreak”!

December 4th, 2009 — New York, NY — Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash has been nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for “Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals” for “Sea of Heartbreak,” a duet with Bruce Springsteen that appears on her critically acclaimed album The List. This is Cash’s ninth career nomination.

Rosanne’s “Short List” in Time Magazine

In Time’s Nov. 20 issue, Rosanne contributes her "Short List" to their regular feature, The Short List of Things to Do. Illustrated!

New York Times Review of “The List” In Concert, October 11, 2009

New York Times "Ms. Cash has a voice both dark and sweet, with a gentle but reliable vibrato, and she knows how to convey the quiet sting of heartache."

Nashville Skyline Interview, 10/8

NASHVILLE SKYLINE, October 8, 2009: Rosanne Cash Talks About The List
"...you have to separate yourself and find out what you love. And then find out what was there all along."

Listing Test

this is a summary for a listing test

Tumblr Blog: Cash Family Stories

In her Tumblr blog (thelist.tumblr.com), Rosanne writes about mementos and memories passed down to her—recipes, army jackets, friends— by family and friends, and passed on by her to her own family. What has a family member or mentor passed on to you? Share your stories, video, recipes, photos etc at http://thelist.tumblr.com/submit or by e-mailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). 

Picks for August 2009
Wednesday, August 19

Mr. L and I walked the new Highline with our kids a couple times this summer. What a fantastic idea, to turn the old elevated railway into a meandering park, with natural (or at least natural-LOOKING) plants and flowers, and wonderful vantage points, and tunnels and benches, and impromptu concerts on fire escape balconies. A little bit of everything, just like the city itself.

Friday, July 31

I was crossing a street in the East Village and I saw a man coming toward me with a cat. On a leash. On his head. The cat was sitting very happily on his owner’s head, and I stopped a moment to watch as they walked down the street. Usually weird animal moments happen on the streets without notice, but this guy and his Cat on the Head were getting a lot of attention from passers-by, and they both looked happy to receive it.

Picks for June 2009
Wednesday, June 10

I was in an elegant restaurant, sitting near an elderly, well-dressed couple and could not help overhearing this comment from the woman to her male companion: "Well, the MOST adventurous people in MY college were the nymphomaniacs who became lesbians." The man merely nodded in silent understanding. I’m not making this up.

Recent Additions
Monday, June 1

The last day of May was spectacular. It was in the mid 70’s, clear, blue and bright. At 4 in the afternoon, Mr. L and I went to a performance at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn of Cynthia Hopkins’  "The Success of Failure (Or the Failure of Success)", directed by our friend D.J. Mendel. It was wild, dark, inspiring and quite brave. Afterwards, we walked back to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge, along with a few hundred other people out enjoying the gorgeous spring day. Mr. L was taken by a fancy in the middle of the bridge and stopped to kiss me, with the skyline and the East River as backdrop. We got in a taxi and went to one of our favorite old-time French bistros, and a jazz combo was playing when we walked in. The door of the restaurant was open to the breeze and the light was scattering across the hundred-year-old floorboards. After dinner, we walked out into a beautiful fading sky, and walked the ten blocks home. It was kind of a perfect day, one which makes you happy to live in New York, where there is art, architecture, history, rivers, French cuisine, jazz music, antique buildings and romance at every turn.

Picks for May 2009
Sunday, May 3

Overheard walking down the sidewalk: "I SLEEPWALK faster than you."
(Okay, my husband said it to me. But he’s abnormal. I am a very fast walker. It’s just that he’s a lot taller and his strides are inhuman.)

Picks for March 2009
April 20, 2009: A Fond Farewell to “Measure for Measure”
Monday, April 13

I was so sad to read in the New York Times today that the venerable Joseph Patelson Music House is closing. I first went in there at least 25 years ago to buy piano scores. I went in a decade ago to buy Italian Arias. I went in last year to buy ‘Piano the Second Time Around’ and ‘Bach for Beginners’ so I could practice my abysmal piano skills. Patelson is a legendary store for musicians of all kinds, and it is another victim of the internet. Why go into Patelson when you can buy sheet music directly from the publisher online? Why? Because there was so much pleasure in going through the hand-lettered bins and racks, softly shuffling across the old hardwood floors, looking across the street to Carnegie Hall through the gorgeous old carriage house windows, and accepting the sales clerks occasional bad humor with equanimity. I was not a regular customer of Patelson, but I appreciated it deeply and thought, like so many other things, that it would always be there.
Goodbye to another era.

Picks for February 2009
Friday, February 13

A story from my son’s piano teacher: she asked her students to become ‘metronomes’, and to do an informal survey of beats and rhythms in the city.  One of her students listened intently and then said, with some disappointment, ‘But—I thought Metronomes were gnomes who lived in the subway."

January 19, 2009: My Inauguration Story
February 9, 2009: Making The List - 100 (or so) Essential Country Songs
Picks for January 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009

In my nearly eighteen years of living in New York City, I’ve never seen this until today: a stark naked man walking down Seventh Avenue. It was twenty degrees, and he did not have a single stitch of clothing on. Nothing. Nada. He was young, probably in his mid-twenties, and didn’t look too crazy. It was puzzling.

He stopped at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street and stood waving his arms and yelling. A street vendor who had a table of scarves for sale at that corner quickly brought one over to him and tried to convince him to tie it around his waist, but it didn’t really do the job. Within a few minutes, a paddy wagon pulled up and three of New York’s finest jumped out, two female officers and one male. The women averted their eyes, and the male officer cuffed the poor guy. While the police officer was holding the naked man up against the van, he made a cell phone call, and apparently got permission to buy a large scarf from the street vendor, which he did, and then wrapped around the guy before guiding him into the van.

A crowd had gathered by this time, and a couple of people got out cameras to take pictures. The female officers shooed them away, and the naked guy, at that point quiet and subdued, started shaking with the cold. I felt very bad for him. What drives a young man to take off all his clothes and walk down the avenue in the dead of winter? And what would happen to him once they got him to the precinct?

January 8, 2009: Mrs. L’s Best of 2008
Friday, December 5

We have a friend who recently moved from Tennessee to New York, and we had him over for dinner a few nights ago. We were listening to him describe the pros and cons of moving to New York, and  the enormous transition he is currently navigating.  He mused about how long he might stay in the city.  After listening quietly for a few minutes, my nine-year-old son finally interjected with some stridency, "But… are you going to get your green card??"
I’ve always maintained that Manhattan is indeed an island off the coast of America, but I didn’t realize how fully my son had integrated that notion.

Picks for November 2008
Nov. 29, 2008: Five Things You May Not Know
Wednesday, November 5

I live in Chelsea, about twenty blocks straight south of Times Square, and I could hear the roars from my bedroom window at about 11 pm election night, when Obama was declared President-elect.  The celebration here in Chelsea, and all around the city, went on until the wee hours.  There was literally Dancing In The Streets.  There was a group in the East Village who gathered spontaneously to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner".  American flags went up all over.  Personally, we posted a little handmade sign in the window, next to the pumpkin decorations, that said "Yes, We Did!"
What an exciting moment.

NYTimes on “Science of the Five Senses”

Rosanne will be a panelist on a new lecture series by the New York Academy of Sciences. The series, "Science of the Five Senses", connects leading scientists with artists in an exploration of their work. Rosanne will be appearing with psychologist Daniel Levitin on April 29, 2009. For more information on the series, read the NY Times article and visit the New York Academy of Sciences web site.

November 5, 2008: The Walls Come Down
Wednesday, October 29

We had our first real cold day in the city yesterday and it was fun to see everyone break out their winter duds.  I have made an informal observation over the years about who really dresses for the weather, and who rebels against appropriate cold-weather garb.  If I want to know how cold it is, and how to dress, I look out my window and watch passers-by for a few minutes to get my cue. Just opening the door and sticking my hand out never works, because once I’m out for a few minutes it is always colder than I thought.  Okay, here comes a young, straight man, wearing a hoodie.  No, can’t trust him.   I’ll freeze to death.  Teenage girl in a mini-skirt and Ugg boots with only a scarf for warmth?   Are you kidding?  I’ll have pneumonia by 4 pm.  Pizza delivery guy?  Shirtsleeves.  Right, he just ran out of the restaurant and didn’t bother putting a jacket on.  No reliable information there.   Okay, here comes the exact right person for my weather info:  a mom pushing a stroller.  She AND the baby have on coat, scarf, gloves and a hat.  Thank you, Mom!   I’ll be toasty all day.

Wednesday, October 22

Because the euro is so strong and the dollar so weak, the city is overrun with foreign tourists right now, all laden down with shopping bags.  I see plenty of signs in store windows that say ‘Euros accepted’.  I even saw one sign that said, ‘Euros ONLY’.  I won’t mention any names.  You know who you are, nice antique store.  My daughter and I were in Bloomingdales last month, going up the escalator and as we got off, we saw a tall, striking young woman with a thick Brooklyn accent hawking perfume where people were getting on and off the escalator.  No one paid any attention to her, so she amped up the volume and, in full Brooklynese, said, "BONJOUR!  CA VA!  BONJOUR, PEOPLE!"

Picks for October 2008
Wenesday, October 8

I stepped into an elevator which was full of seven or eight African-American women, all leaning over a stroller and cooing at an adorable, pudgy-cheeked, wide-eyed African-American baby, who looked to be about 2 years old.

Her mother kept saying gently, "Tell them your name. Tell them your name," but the baby would not comply. The elevator door opened and all the ladies started to walk out and suddenly the baby bellowed, in a voice loud enough to fill a ball park, "MY NAME IS BARACK OBAMA!" Everyone broke into peals of laughter. I leaned over and said to the baby, ‘So, you’re going to be president!" and she bellowed back, "YES!"

Tuesday, October 7

I know it’s summer when the old guy in the building next door parks his plastic lawn chair on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building sometime after lunch, and sits there for the entire afternoon watching the traffic and the passersby as if he is watching the waves and boats from the seashore. And I know it’s Fall when he stops bringing his plastic chaise outdoors and he becomes just another sidewalk surfer, head down and jacket zipped all the way up as he trudges down the street. It’s Fall.

October 4, 2008: Post from Bochum, Germany