Rosanne Cash getting better with age
ROSANNE CASH “SHE REMEMBERS EVERYTHING” (CAPITOL)
Rosanne Cash wrote one of my favourite music memoirs, “Composed,” so naturally “she remembers everything.” Cash is 63 and keeps getting better with age — which says a lot, when one considers her large body of work up to this point.
Everything about “She Remembers Everything” is enriched by Cash’s vintage: the emotional depth of her vocal delivery (check the a cappella opening of the Irish folksong “The Parting Glass”), the increasing role of atmospherics in her music — the production here, shared by Joe Henry, Tucker Martine, and John Leventhal, draws her closer to torch singer territory than modern Americana folk songs — and the lived experience of her lyrics, which are rich with wisdom and the challenges of long-term relationships. “Every Day Feels Like a New Goodbye” is an ode to a grown-up daughter; “Not Many Miles to Go” is an affectionate ode to her husband, guitarist and co-producer Leventhal. The other subjects are less obvious but no less affecting.
More directly, Cash has been an outspoken advocate of gun control, especially in the numb-inducing recent years, and particularly after the massacre at an outdoor Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas in 2017. It’s a subject she explores in “8 Gods of Harlem,” about a shooting closer to her New York home, and in which she enlists Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Costello to write and sing a verse each with her. For someone who speaks so eloquently on the subject, the song doesn’t live up to her own standards — which are admittedly high. Cash scores a much more direct hit with the post-#MeToo title track, co-written and performed with Sam Phillips: “Who knows who she used to be before it all went dark / Was she like a streak of fire, a painted glass, a beating heart? / All the mirrors, all the smoke, she’ll read a thousand times / Versions of the third degree; yours and hers and mine.”
Cash is a class act, always has been. As her 14th album attests, she always will be.
Stream: “The Undiscovered Country,” “Not Many Miles to Go,” “The Parting Glass”
BELLE PLAINE “MALICE, MERCY, GRIEF & WRATH” (RAWLCO)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Colter Wall’s second album, and asked the rhetorical question: when was the last time you heard a great artist from Regina?
I need to take that back. Big time. Not just because of this new album by Belle Plaine, but because having recently visited the city, I’ve been awakened to a wealth of talent in the roots rock and country world there that makes it one of the most exciting music scenes in Canada. And Belle Plaine’s album might make the best argument why that is.
Belle Plaine is Melanie Hankewich, who grew up in Fosston, Sask. (it’s between Humboldt and Kelvington, due east of Saskatoon — but basically in the middle of nowhere). This is her third album, and she draws deeply from her local community: Colter Wall, Kacy Anderson (of Kacy & Clayton), Megan Nash, and Blake Berglund, who is her partner, guitarist and a solo artist in his own right. The album is produced by Jason Plumb, best remembered as the frontman of the ’90s band the Waltons.
All that talent is put to use on nine songs that range from traditional country to torch songs to more contemporary singersongwriter fare, all showcasing Hankewich’s haunting, jazz-trained voice. She draws character portraits of loss and longing, occasionally inhabiting stories much older than she — and, in the case of opening track, “For All Those Who I love,” an abusive father filled with regret. She’s also able to write a classic country zinger, like the song with the chorus: “Is it cheatin’ if you don’t get laid? / Is it a gig if you don’t get paid? / Is it a crying shame if my tears don’t fall?”
Belle Plaine opens a sold-out show for Colter Wall in Toronto at the Opera House on Nov. 24. Hopefully, we’ll see her back in these parts on her own soon enough.
Stream: “Golden Ring” feat. Megan Nash, “Is It Cheating” featuring Colter Wall and Blake Berglund, “Laila Sady Johnson Wasn’t Beaten By No Train”
FEVER FEEL “FEVER FEEL” (INDEPENDENT)
A lot of modern psychedelic rock bands rely on technology and effects to get trippy. This Victoria-via-Calgary band, on the other hand, has old-school jazz chops and it sounds like they’ve put in some serious time on stage in the four years since their debut single. This, their first full-length, displays an admirably stubborn streak that refuses to acknowledge any music more modern than, say, 1975. Pedal steel guitars, flutes and bongos augment this guitar-bass-organ-drum quartet, which has no qualms shifting tempos or moods midsong.
If you thought Black Mountain was retro, they’ve got nothing on Fever Feel. It works. And unlike, say, Greta van Fleet, there’s no specifically shameless homage going on. It’s just a vibe, man.
Stream: “Spitting Silver,” “Lose Your Mind,” “Already There”