Rosanne Cash - The Wheel (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (2023)      


Review:
The daughter of Johnny Cash and his first wife Vivian Liberto, Rosanne Cash carved out a musical path all her own.  She charted twenty-two country singles under her own name while at Columbia Records between 1979 and 1995, embracing contemporary textures while never forgetting her roots and her role in the distinguished lineage of country music.  On December 15, one of her most acclaimed and personal albums, 1993's The Wheel, will return in a remastered deluxe edition from RumbleStrip Records. Cash's eighth studio album, The Wheel marked a new beginning for the singer-songwriter.  She had broken up with husband and collaborator Rodney Crowell, moved from Nashville to New York, and begun a creative and personal affiliation with songwriter-producer John Leventhal, whom she would later marry.  Many of the introspective, intimate compositions (four of which were co-written by the couple) ruminated on the numerous changes in her life, and while neither of the singles from The Wheel charted, that was no reflection on their quality.  As a songwriter, singer, and musician, Cash was at the revealing top of her game, whether tackling commitment, betrayal, love, or sex (or all of the above).  She welcomed Mary Chapin Carpenter, Marc Cohn, Patty Larkin, and Bruce Cockburn as guest vocalists, and the Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench and Eagles' Steuart Smith among the musicians. Leventhal played numerous instruments on the record including guitar, bass, mandolin, piano, organ, keyboards, harmonica, and percussion. "John and I grew closer with every session," Rosanne shares in the press release for this reissue, "and by the end of the record we were a couple.  The music was both a revelation and the revelator." The Wheel was well-received upon its debut on the Columbia label.  Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Rosanne Cash sounds as if she's lived every word she sings on The Wheel - and she probably has."  Rolling Stone observed that the album "makes her singer-songwriter shorthand a cathartic outlet, not merely a blunt weapon."  Now, its reputation only having grown over the past three decades, Cash is returning to The Wheel on her own RumbleStrip Records. The deluxe anniversary edition has the remastered original album on the first CD, while the second disc contains Rosanne's performance from Austin City Limits on July 26, 1993 as well as six rare tracks originally from the Columbia Records Radio Hour program.  These include renditions of The Wheel's songs (the title track, "The Truth About You," "Roses in the Fire," and "Seventh Avenue"), the Interiors track "What We Really Want," and a reinterpretation of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from My Fair Lady.  (Cash and Leventhal are currently co-writing a long-in-development musical adaptation of the film Norma Rae; they premiered some of its songs on a New York stage back in 2018.) — By Joe Marchcheses at SecondDisc


   


Track List:
CD1: Original Album
01 - The Wheel (2023 Remaster)
02 - Seventh Avenue (2023 Remaster)
03 - Change Partners (2023 Remaster)
04 - Sleeping in Paris (2023 Remaster)
05 - You Won't Let Me in (2023 Remaster)
06 - From the Ashes (2023 Remaster)
07 - The Truth About You (2023 Remaster)
08 - Tears Falling Down (2023 Remaster)
09 - Roses in the Fire (2023 Remaster)
10 - Fire of the Newly Alive (2023 Remaster)
11 - If There's a God On My Side (2023 Remaster)

CD2: Austin City Limits, July 26, 1993
01 - The Wheel (Austin City Limits, July 26, 1993)
02 - Seventh Avenue (Austin City Limits, July 26, 1993)
03 - I'll Change for You (Austin City Limits, July 26, 1993)
04 - Crescent City (Austin City Limits, July 26, 1993)
05 - Sleeping in Paris (Austin City Limits, July 26, 1993)

CD3: Live for The Columbia Records Radio Hour
01 - Seventh Avenue (Live for The Columbia Records Radio Hour)
02 - Roses in the Fire (Live for The Columbia Records Radio Hour)
03 - The Truth About You (Live for The Columbia Records Radio Hour)
04 - What We Really Want (Live for The Columbia Records Radio Hour)
05 - Wouldn’t It Be Loverly (Live for The Columbia Records Radio Hour)
06 - The Wheel (Live for The Columbia Records Radio Hour)


Media Report:
Genre: americana, country
Country: New York, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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