Nashville.com Visitors Guide To Nashville, TN
Rosanne Cash is sharing a new lyric video for the remastered version of “The Truth about You,” a standout from her landmark album, The Wheel, an album about transformation that reinvented Cash’s sound and career following her move to New York City.
On November 17, The Wheel 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will be available on RumbleStrip Records (Thirty Tigers), the label founded by Cash and husband / collaborator John Leventhal, six-time Grammy winning producer and songwriter. The deluxe edition includes the original, remastered album, alongside a second live LP with Rosanne’s 1993 Austin City Limits appearance and a rare broadcast of the Columbia Records Radio Hour.
Beginning November 14 in Minneapolis, Rosanne and John will be revisiting the music and stories behind The Wheel on a special run of shows. Tickets are on sale now, and dates will be paired with an appearance by the duo at local record stores.
Co-produced by Cash and Leventhal, The Wheel is the beginning of a lifelong creative partnership. Together, they have made seven albums including the three-time Grammy winning The River & the Thread, Black Cadillac, The List, 10 Song Demo, Rules of Travel and She Remembers Everything, alongside dozens of side projects and thousands of live performances. Cash and Leventhal have also written the music and lyrics for the upcoming Broadway musical Norma Rae.
It all started when Rosanne wrote seven songs for The Wheel and played them for John—the title song, “You Won’t Let Me In,” “Change Partners,” “Sleeping in Paris,” “From the Ashes,” “Roses in the Fire,” and “If There’s a God on My Side.” “I told him they were ‘elemental’— full of references to the natural world: wind, fire, rain, moon, snow. I wasn’t even sure what I was talking about when I said it, but I had noticed that I was using a lot of nature metaphors, many of them violent. He sort of cocked his head, a little confused, and said, ‘Okay. But are they good songs?’”
The Wheel sessions were “a thrilling mix of truly gifted people,” remembers Rosanne, who was joined by Benmont Tench, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Catherine Russell, Marc Cohn and Steuart Smith, among others. “John and I grew closer with every session, and by the end of the record we were a couple. The music was both a revelation and the revelator.”
“Most remarkable about these tightly scripted songs is Cash’s resilience…” writes Rolling Stone in a 4-star review from 1993. The record also made Entertainment Weekly’s Best of the Year list: “This crystal-clear, intensely sung record rings startlingly true as it details the end of a marriage-and the renewal that can follow.”
“It’s satisfying and sweet to reintroduce The Wheel in this 30th anniversary year,” adds Rosanne. “I can’t look back at that time and separate the music from Love. What was true then has become more true and more alive every day since.”
Available for the first time on vinyl, The Wheel has been pressed in a few formats: the deluxe 2LP 180-gram vinyl edition, the original remastered LP, and a 2CD deluxe edition, all available for pre-order here. Signed copies of the limited-edition exclusive swirl vinyl are available at Rosanne’s store, and will ship November 17. All other retailers will have the record available December 15.
