Rosanne Cash's catalog on Columbia is nothing if not formidable. Her pioneering meld of country, rock & roll (with an emphasis on "rock"), folk, and even blues, her topical concerns (which went deeper than most songwriters who came before her in taking on the tough topics of life), and her insistence on working outside the Nashville box scored her a number of hits and blazed the trail for many women who came later.
King's Record Shop followed by two years her flirtation with the kind of pop coming out of England in droves, the radically underappreciated Rhythm & Romance.
King's Record Shop -- produced by her then-husband and longtime collaborator
Rodney Crowell -- is a granite-solid collection of covers and originals that delve deeply into the traditions that informed her life and created her as an artist, while revealing the trouble in her marriage to
Crowell. The opening track,
Eliza Gilkyson's "Rosie Strike Back," is a real feminist country anthem, and contain killer backing vocals from
Patty Smyth (of
Scandal) and
Steve Winwood. Her read of
John Hiatt's "The Way We Make a Broken Heart" is the kind of torch and tang ballad that will stand the test of time simply for its gender-bending take on relationships. Her collaboration with
Hank DeVito, "If You Change Your Mind," is a jangly folk-rock ballad that expresses romantic longing in the face of a wayward lover; in its choruses one hears need as well as generosity. "The Real Me," a song that offers the vulnerability, truth, and flaws of a life in the process of transformation, is a preview of the type of material that would appear on the nakedly revealing
Interiors. And it just goes deeper, from her rollicking and rebellious rocker "Somewhere Sometime" to the stellar cover of
John Stewart's heart-wrenching "Runaway Train" to the straight-ahead country of her father
Johnny's "Tennessee Flat Top Box." With its faux soul R&B chorus,
Crowell's "I Don't Have to Crawl" is as full of want, cracked-heart honesty, and determination to keep standing as anything in country music. Ultimately,
King's Record Shop is
Rosanne Cash's classic, a work that transcends production and songwriting styles and the pop and country music of the time. This is a must. [The 2005 remastered edition on CD includes three bonus cuts, "707," which was issued on her 1995 retrospective, and live versions of "Runaway Train" and "Green, Yellow and Red." It also contains great liner notes by Geoffrey Himes that include interviews with
Cash and
Crowell along with rare photos.] ~ Thom Jurek