Rosanne Cash in memorable S.F. show about her father.
Guitar great Ry Cooder joins singer’s daughter for memorable SFJazz show
Rosanne Cash brought her father’s songbook. Ry Cooder brought Luther Perkins’ cream-colored 1955 Fender guitar. They met in the middle of the stage at the SFJazz Center on Thursday night, May 3, to do something Cash vowed she would never do and may never do again after this weekend. They played an entire concert of songs recorded by Johnny Cash.
It was not a greatest-hits show. They did not do “I Walk the Line,” “Folsom Prison Blues” or “A Boy Named Sue.” Rosanne Cash sang mostly the slow stuff — ballads and story songs — which she delivered with pure country phrasing that sometimes left an audience that included Linda Ronstadt in silent reverie at the end of a number.
“When I was a child,” she told the audience before a beautiful rendition of “Pickin’ Time,” “there were certain songs of my dad’s
that made it into my DNA.”
The better-known titles, “Hey Porter,” “Get Rhythm” and “Ring of Fire,” were sung by Cooder, whose voice did not always do much for the songs. But his guitar work was always right there, not too loud and never overdone, and able to mimic Johnny Cash’s trademark railroad beat. His timing was in sync with his son, Joachim, who supplied a soft touch on the drums.
The four-night run is sold out and marks the end of Rosanne Cash’s two-year tenure as resident artistic director at SFJazz. But the concept was Cooder’s.
When they took the stage, Cash told the audience that she had asked Cooder to accompany her, and his answer was “the only show to do is Johnny.” Her retort: “I spent nearly 40 years trying not to do that exact thing.” As time went on, she warmed to the idea as “an opportunity to organize things in my own psyche,” she said. “Ry without knowing it has given me that opportunity.”
The musical director was Cash’s husband, John Leventhal, who also played acoustic rhythm. Cooder played a variety of guitars, each change being a delicate overhead maneuver to avoid dislodging his Stetson. The 100-minute set did not sound over-polished or over-rehearsed. It was more like a set at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but with perfect acoustics and without wind.
“These are simple songs,” Cooder explained, “but it’s harder than you may think to dial it in just right.”
After opening with “Understand Your Man,” Cash sang “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” which she made into one of her signature recordings in the 1980s.
Before Cooder’s first showcase, he told the story of being 8 years old and picking up a country station out of Pasadena, near where he grew up. The first Johnny Cash song he heard was “Hey Porter,” and he described the vocal as “sounding like he was trapped in a cave. Just ferocious.”
But it was the electric guitar behind Cash’s voice that stuck with Cooder. At the end of the story, he was handed the Fender Esquire that Perkins played as leader of the Tennessee Two, Cash’s backup band. Cooder had earlier borrowed it from Rosanne Cash’s half brother, John Carter Cash.
Then he played that intro, sounding exactly like Perkins.
Cash told a story about locking herself up with a record player to study the story album “Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West.” Then she sat in a chair to play “Hardin Wouldn’t Run” with Cooder in his own chair, playing on acoustic slide.
Her vocal on “I Still Miss Someone” might have tied Darrell Scott’s as the best live version ever.
At the end of the 12-song set, Cash and Cooder traded verses on “The Long Black Veil.” Cooder momentarily sang the wrong verse, though he made the mistake part of his charm.
“We’re open to all kinds of magic,” Cash had said at the outset. “We hope you are, too.”
As an encore, a moody intro on electric guitar by Leventhal led into an unrecognizably slow turn of “Ring of Fire” with Cooder on vocal.
“My dad always ended his shows with a gospel tune to please his mother,” Cash said. Then before closing her set with “I Am a Pilgrim,” she turned to Cooder and said, “I’ll never forget this, Ry. Ever.”