Concert review: Rosanne Cash at Harris Theatre

    Rosanne Cash had a few laughs with her husband, John Leventhal, on the stage Friday of the Harris Theatre, mostly over how to tune a guitar. It seemed like a set-up: What? They couldn’t afford a guitar tech? How about bringing along an extra guitar or two?
   
    The quarreling couple’s light-hearted repartee not only enhanced the air of intimacy, but provided a necessary balance to a 95-minute, 19-song performance brimming with longing, heartache and death.

    Cash will always be referred to as the daughter of a legend, Johnny Cash. But her 30-year career is also a work of art, marked by her acutely detailed songwriting. On Friday, however, nearly half the concert was devoted to a list of songs her father gave her when she was 18, mostly country classics that served as her introduction to a deeper, darker world than the one she was experiencing on American pop radio, circa 1973.

    Accompanied only by Leventhal’s sparse, trebly guitar playing, Cash played curator rather than diva. Her subtle, nuanced performances put the image-rich stories center-stage. Clearly, her mission was to get out of the way of these songs, to present them with as little window-dressing as possible. At times, she could’ve stood to be a touch more assertive, but mostly her instincts were correct.

        On “Long Black Veil” she created minimalist aural cinema by keeping the focus squarely on the voice-from-the-grave narrative. She played Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” with a stately, Elizabethan restraint, allowing the song’s innate beauty to emerge. And she brought out the alternately sultry and queasy twists and turns of Bobby Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe” by keeping things lightly simmered, just like the matter-of-fact dinner-table conversation in the lyrics.

        The concert also demonstrated that Cash isn’t done growing as an artist. She always had a small but pretty voice. Now she is taking it places that it couldn’t go in the ‘80s, when she was a country hitmaker. It’s a voice that sneaks up on you, especially when she started stretching notes during an a cappella passage in “Radio Operator,” a song she wrote about her parents’ courtship. On the finger-snapping swing of Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On,” she discovered her inner Billie Holiday.
       
        She two-stepped through “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” a rare upbeat number, and Leventhal’s percussive guitar playing brought a rock intensity to her devastating “Dreams are not my Home.” But mostly, Cash and Leventhal kept things lean and understated. This is a couple who may not know how to tune a guitar efficiently, but they sure don’t waste any time or notes finding the heart of a song.

greg@gregkot.com

Rosanne Cash set list Friday at the Harris Theatre

1. I'm Movin' On (Hank Snow)
2. Miss the Mississippi and You (William Heagney)
3. Long Black Veil (Danny Dill & Marijohn Wilkin
4. Sea of Heartbreak (Hal David & Paul Hampton)
5. Motherless Children (Traditional)
6. Heartaches by the Number (Harlan Howard)
7. Runaway Train (John Stewart)
8. Black Cadillac (Rosanne Cash)
9. Radio Operator (R. Cash, John Leventhal)
10. The World Unseen (Rosanne Cash)
11. Dreams are not My Home (Rosanne Cash)
12. Tennessee Flat Top Box (Johnny Cash) 
13. Ode to Billy Joe (Bobby Gentry)
14. Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)
15. Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow (A.P. Carter)
16. Seven Year Ache (Rosanne Cash)

Encore
17. If I Were a Man (Rosanne Cash)
18. Blue Moon with Heartache (Rosanne Cash)
19. The Wheel (Rosanne Cash)

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