by Len Righi
Rosanne Cash's performance Saturday night (Aug. 7) at Musikfest was as exquisite as the finest cut crystal.
The sensitive, tasteful guitar backing supplied by her husband-producer, John Leventhal, as well as Foy Hall's acoustics and even the two decorative candelabras at the rear of the stage, further enhanced an emotionally rich experience.
A low-key, evocative "I Still Miss Someone," written by her late father, Johnny Cash (it was the flip side of his 1959 No. 1 hit, "Don't Take Your Guns to Town"), set the mood for the 80-minute concert, which included moving versions of some of the best songs of her 25-year career, including "Runaway Train," "What We Really Want," "September When It Comes," "Seven Year Ache," the 1986 Grammy Award-winner "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me" and the title track of her Grammy-nominated 2003 disc, "Rules of Travel."
Cash offered a glimpse from her forthcoming disc, "Black Cadillac," with "House on the Lake," a somber but hardly downbeat look back at her early upbringing, introducing it by saying it describes "how relationships that are built on love don't end when one person leaves the planet."
Between probing the darker corners of relationships and stripping bare their dynamics, Cash - in black slacks, a pink camisole and a loose, multicolored, thigh-length jacket - chatted amiably with the full house of attentive, largely middle-aged fans.
She urged them to catch Steve Forbert's show later in the evening, told of her disappointment in not winning a 1985 Grammy for "Interiors" ("I had the dress, and the bling") and, prompted by a fan's request, played fragments of Townes Van Zant's "Two Girls" and "Pancho & Lefty."
So strong was the audience response that Cash, before beginning an encore that included Johnny Cash's "I Got Stripes" and "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from "My Fair Lady," wondered aloud, "Why didn't I come here before?"
http://www.mcall.com
by Dave Tianen
Five or six songs into Rosanne Cash's set Thursday night at the Pabst Theater some guy in the crowd finally shouted out the logical question: "Where the hell have you been?"
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Also from the Journal-Sentinel: Interview, August 4