Rosanne Cash: The List

The List is a collection of country music classics bequeathed to Rosanne Cash shortly after her high school graduation by her father, Johnny Cash, who feared his daughter was lacking basic education in roots Americana. Lo these many years later the list is now an album, a pretty great album at that. Its dozen songs are bookended by the twin pillars of modern country, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, with Cash singing “Miss the Mississippi and You” and “Bury Me Beneath the Weeping Willow” with epic longing and piercing tenderness. In between are timeless tunes associated with Patsy Cline, Hank Snow, Bob Dylan, Hank Cochran, Merle Haggard (“Silver Wings,” with a wonderful companion vocal by Rufus Wainwright—more effective than Roseanne’s other duets with Bruce Springsteen on a “Sea of Heartbreak,” a predictably tuneless Elvis Costello on “Heartaches By the Number,” and a serviceable Jeff Tweedy on “Long Black Veil.”) Never one to offer rote versions of cover songs, Rosanne finds her own reflective place in these beautifully crafted gems, and her producer/guitarist/ husband John Leventhal assists by crafting a spare, haunting backdrop for Cash’s sensitive vocals. The List reveals in equal measure Ms. Cash’s sensibility and patriarchal lessons well learned.