Album Notes and Track Listings
Track by track information on the new releases.
SEVEN YEAR ACHE
Rosanne’s second Columbia LP broke every rule – it was a rock-influenced album as Chet Flippo emphasizes, that didn’t rely exclusively on Nashville songwriters for its tunes, and was recorded in Los Angeles with studio musicians (including Booker T. Jones, Albert Lee, Tony Brown) augmenting her and Rodney’s band the Cherry Bombs (including guitarists Hank DeVito and Jerry McGee, bassist Emory Gordy, and drummer Larrie Londin). Beyond that, it was in the right place at the right time, and positioned Rosanne as THE new voice at a critical juncture – the mainstreaming of punk rock’s ethical rejection of corporate pop coming head-to-head with the aging crossover of Nashville underground’s ‘outlaw country’ movement. 26-year old Rosanne was savvy and rocked, yet was grounded in the traditionalism she inherited from her father, and it all came out on SEVEN YEAR ACHE.
An album is only as good as its songs, and SEVEN YEAR ACHE’s trifecta of #1 C&W hits took off with Rosanne’s original title tune, which resonated with the new demographic of radio listeners as it gradually rose to the top of the chart 13 weeks after its debut. The second single, songwriter Leroy Preston’s “My Baby Thinks He’s a Train” (the first of many ‘train’ songs that have populated Rosanne’s discography) took 10 weeks to build up to #1, followed by another Rosanne original, “Blue Moon With Heartache” (12 weeks to #1). But Rosanne and Rodney had crafted an album with no filler, as evidenced by the balance of the tracks: Keith Sykes’ “Rainin’” and “Only Human,” Steve Forbert’s “What Kinda Girl,” Merle Haggard/Red Simpson’s “You Don’t Have Very Far to Go,” the Crickets’ Glen D. Hardin/Sonny Curtis song “Where Will the Words Come From,” Tom Petty’s “Hometown Blues,” and the Hank DeVito/Rodney Crowell song “Can’t Resist.” The LP reached #1 in June 1981, three months into its 14 month reign on the C&W chart. The two previously unreleased bonus tracks on this expanded edition include “The Feeling” (from the original sessions); and a live 1993 tour-band version (with Rosanne’s future husband John Leventhal on guitar and backing vocals, and future Bob Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell) of “Seven Year Ache.”
Seven Year Ache (Columbia/Legacy CK 86997, originally issued in March 1981, as Columbia 36965)
Tracks: 1. Rainin’ • 2. Seven Year Ache (C&W #1) • 3. Blue Moon With Heartache (C&W #1) • 4. What Kinda Girl? • 5. You Don’t Have Very Far To Go • 6. My Baby Thinks He’s A Train (C&W #1) • 7. Only Human • 8. Where Will The Words Come From? • 9. Hometown Blues • 10. I Can’t Resist
Bonus tracks: 11. The Feeling (previously unreleased, from the original album recording sessions) • 12. Seven Year Ache (previously unreleased, live in Boulder, CO, July 17, 1993, on the “E-Town” radio show).
KING’S RECORD SHOP
After the wildly successful SEVEN YEAR ACHE, Rosanne and Rodney returned to Nashville to record 1982’s Somewhere In the Stars. The former turned out to be a hard act to follow – the latter did not reach #1, nor did any of its singles (“Ain’t No Money,” “I Wonder,” and “It Hasn’t Happened Yet”). A three-year childbearing hiatus ensued, including the embattled year-long process of recording the Rhythm & Romance LP outside of Nashville, and mostly with an outside producer. Despite its radical power-pop shift, the album spun off consecutive #1 hits (the Grammy Award-winning “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” “Never Be You”), another pair in the top 5 (“Hold On,” “Second To No One”), and convincingly returned Rosanne to the #1 album spot, the start of a 72-week stay on the chart through 1985-86.
For her next album Rosanne returned to Nashville and Rodney returned to the producer’s chair, with a roots-rock grounded concept hinging on three songs, as Rosanne told Geoff Himes: John Hiatt’s “The Way We Make a Broken Heart” (which turned out to be the first #1 hit), the Sun-flavored cover of her father Johnny’s old “Tennessee Flat Top Box” (the second #1, featuring Randy Scruggs on guitar), and Rosanne’s original “The Real Me.” It was one of several songs on the album that detonated the taboo issue (in Nashville and C&W circles) of female empowerment, along with Eliza Gilkyson’s “Rosie Strike Back” and Rodney’s “I Don’t Have To Crawl.” The nature of a woman’s vulnerability was also given voice on two Rosanne originals, “Somewhere Sometime” and “If You Change Your Mind” (the third #1, co-written with Hank DeVito) and pianist Benmont Tench’s (of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers) “Why Don’t You Quit Leaving Me Alone.” The metaphor of “a marital crisis that is quickly careening out of control,” as Himes describes John Stewart’s “Runaway Train” (the fourth #1, which set a C&W chart record for female artists) further distanced Rosanne from the Nashville establishment.
Though KING’S RECORD SHOP missed the top spot (peaking at #6), it stayed on the C&W chart for two years (103 weeks), a time in which Randy Travis and George Strait had a virtual stranglehold on the chart. Bonus tracks on this expanded edition include “707” written by Memphis English professor John Kilzer (who wrote “Green, Yellow And Red”) which was the non-album B-side of “The Way We Make A Broken Heart”; and previously unreleased live tour-band versions (with Leventhal and Campbell) of “Runaway Train” in 1991, and “Green, Yellow And Red” in 1993.
King’s Record Shop (Columbia/Legacy CK 86994, originally issued in July 1987, as Columbia 40777)
Selections: 1. Rosie Strike Back • 2. The Way We Make A Broken Heart (C&W #1) • 3. If You Change Your Mind (C&W #1) • 4. The Real Me • 5. Somewhere Sometime • 6. Runaway Train (C&W #1) • 7. Tennessee Flat Top Box (C&W #1) • 8. I Don’t Have To Crawl • 9. Green, Yellow And Red • 10. Why Don’t You Quit Leaving Me Alone
Bonus tracks: 11. 707 (single B-side; also released on Rosanne Cash – Retrospective, CK 67321, 1995) • 12. Runaway Train (previously unreleased, live in Toronto, April 3, 1991, on CBC radio’s “Hot Ticket”) • 13. Green, Yellow And Red (previously unreleased, live in Boulder, CO, July 17, 1993, on the “E-Town” radio show).
INTERIORS
After the release of KING’S RECORD SHOP, with its ensuing chart-run and tour support, another relatively lengthy hiatus took place, interrupted only by Hits 1979-1989. Among its dozen tunes were eight (of her 11) #1 C&W hits, including a brand new cover of the Beatles’ “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party,” Rosanne’s final #1 (or top 30 hit, for that matter), and a bittersweet portent of things to come. In the midst of her marriage to Rodney Crowell disintegrating by degrees, the songs that Rosanne was writing in 1989 and 1990 were painful portraits of disillusion and betrayal, stoked by a weary anger for which there was no cure. She laid bare her soul on INTERIORS, an album whose ten songs she wrote (or co-wrote) and produced (or co-produced) during a time when she seemed unable to extricate herself from the aching loneliness and dysfunction that surrounded her, which ultimately resulted in her divorce from Rodney in 1992.
Within her emotional unraveling, however, Rosanne created an album that spoke to her most faithful listeners (who sent it up as far as #23, for a half-year stay on the C&W album chart), even if it totally spooked the C&W powers-that-be at radio and tv. In fact, the album is a confessional song-cycle, from the opening “On The Inside” to the haunting closer, “Paralyzed,” a beautifully demonic piece set off by the arco contrabass of Edgar Meyer, the violin of Mark O’Connor (who plays throughout the album), and John Jarvis on piano and keyboards. “Dance With The Tiger” was co-written with John Stewart (whose “Runaway Train” was an early storm warning three years prior). Most amazing is Rodney’s presence – as the co-writer of “Real Woman” and singing with Rosanne in “On The Surface” and “What We Really Want.” A promotional CD of the album included two extra tracks, the hopeful “Portrait” (co-written with Keith Sykes, whose “Right Or Wrong” gave Rosanne’s first Columbia LP its title); and the epical “All Come True” (a favorite from World Party’s debut album in 1987). Two more previously unreleased bonus tracks fill out this expanded edition, a live tour-band version (with Leventhal and Campbell) of “This World” from 1991, and an acoustic demo-sounding version of “What We Really Want.”
Interiors (Columbia/Legacy CK 93655, originally issued in October 1990, as Columbia 46079)
Tracks: 1. On The Inside • 2. Dance With The Tiger • 3. On The Surface • 4. Real Woman • 5. This World • 6. What We Really Want • 7. Mirror Image • 8. Land Of Nightmares • 9. I Want A Cure • 10. Paralyzed •
Bonus tracks: 11. Portrait • 12. All Come True (tracks 11-12 from promotional CD Interiors: The Full Sessions, CAS 2182) • 13. This World (previously unreleased, live in Toronto, April 3, 1991, on CBC radio’s “Hot Ticket”) • 14. What We Really Want (previously unreleased, acoustic, recording date and location unknown).
THE VERY BEST OF ROSANNE CASH
This collection, characterized by Alanna Nash’s liner notes as “visionary and uncompromising,” eclipses the previous Columbia packages – 1989’s Hits 1979-1989 and 1995’s Retrospective – in several ways other than just the sheer number of its tracks, and the fact that it is the first new remastering of many of these songs in a decade. Ten of the 16 tracks are solid chart hits without which any Rosanne Cash anthology would be considered incomplete, including six #1’s. The balance is an inspired program of original compositions from Rosanne’s three most recent albums (which yielded no C&W chart singles), namely her final Columbia album, 1993’s The Wheel (“The Wheel,” “Sleeping In Paris,” and “Seventh Avenue”); and her first two Capitol albums, 1996’s 10 Song Demo (“Western Wall”) and 2003’s Rules Of Travel (“September When It Comes” featuring Johnny Cash). Finally, there is the previously unreleased alternate version of “Never Be You” (from the 1985 Rhythm & Romance sessions), co-written by Benmont Tench and Tom Petty, and featuring Tench on piano and Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch.
The Very Best Of Rosanne Cash (Columbia/Legacy CK 86996)
Tracks : 1. The Wheel (F) • 2. The Way We Make A Broken Heart (D, C&W #1) • 3. Seven Year Ache (B, C&W #1) • 4. Hold On (C, C&W #5) • 5. On The Surface (E, C&W #69) • 6. No Memories Hangin’ Around (w/Bobby Bare) (A, C&W #17) • 7. My Baby Thinks He’s A Train (B, C&W #1) • 8. I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me (C, C&W #1) • 9. Blue Moon With Heartache (B, C&W #1) • 10. Western Wall (G) • 11. Tennessee Flat Top Box (D, C&W #1) • 12. September When It Comes (feat. Johnny Cash) (H) • 13. Sleeping In Paris (F) • 14. Never Be You (C, previously unreleased alternate version) • 15. What We Really Want (E, C&W #39) • 16. Seventh Avenue (F).
