As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Monday, September 23, 2024

Rosanne Cash – Strathmore, 9/22/2024

Orchestra Center, Row H, Seat 101 – 8 rows from the front, on the center-right aisle. Sightlines and sound were both excellent.

 

This was the third time I’ve seen Rosanne Cash at the Strathmore Music Center, but the experience never gets old. (She doesn’t appear to age much either.) This time I had a sneak peek, as the night before she closed out Saturday night of #XPNFest, the annual three-day music festival that WXPN conducts (and broadcasts) from Camden NJ, right across the river from Philadelphia. The setlists and patter were fairly similar, although the Strathmore show was significantly longer.

 

She reached back near the end of her show for 3 of the 11 (!) country-chart-topping songs from her 1980s commercial heyday (two of which she wrote), but most of her performance consisted of original material from her post-80s albums. She did, however, throw in a song from hubby John Leventhal’s new album, an expressive duet with Leventhal on the classic “Ode To Billie Joe”, Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina” as the encore, and two tracks from 2009’s The List, her record with a dozen of the 100 “greatest country songs” listing that her father had prepared for her. (She teased her husband on “Sea Of Heartbreak”, saying that he’d have to fill in for Bruce Springsteen as a duet partner, and referring to him semi-seriously as “The Boss” at the end.)

 

This year she’s been spotlighting The Wheel, the 1993 album which she remastered and re-released earlier this year once the rights to the recordings reverted to her. The group performed three tracks from it during the first half of the show, including a lovely acoustic take on “Tears Falling Down” and a driving version of the title track, which was one of the high points of the show, along with “The Only Thing Worth Fighting For” (one of my personal favorites) and “She Remembers Everything”.

 

The five-piece band was excellent, with Leventhal on acoustic and electric guitar throughout and Kevin Barry providing additional guitar work, including lap steel on several numbers. It also included Sam Katz on bass, Dan Rieser on drums, and Misty Boyce on keyboards (apologies for any misspellings).

 

Cash also revealed that she was going to be among the speakers at Tuesday’s unveiling of her father’s new statue in the U.S. Capitol, joining the one of civil rights leader Daisy Bates to represent the state of Arkansas.

 

The crowd was attentive and enthusiastic throughout. I didn’t see a single person going in or out until the end of the show (unlike some recent experiences at Wolf Trap).

 

Setlist