Rosanne Cash

A woman is in a man's home. the phone rings. It's another woman. Rosanne Cash sings: "Pick
it up/Tell her you're home/I see your face turn into broken glass/Talking slow/Thinking
fast." Perhaps while she was writing Interiors, her 1990 chronicle of heartbreak, Cash
would have been less composed about the incident that frames "Roses in the Fire," one
standout among The Wheel's many meditations on misfired romance. Having put... More >

Cash's literary ambitions would be hard on any singing songwriter, not just a country star with New York on her mind. So while these evocations, explorations, and other -ations of life and love a-borning are prim by good American-music standards of process and groove, give her credit for evoking and exploring like she means it, which has always been her strength. "I'm changing like a girl/On the threshold of her life/In love with the whole world," this thirtysomething sings, and you can feel it. (Grade: A-)