Sunday, June 23, 2013

Rosanne Cash concert review and video

Last night I went to the Luminato Festival to see Rosanne Cash. Of course most folks know that she is the daughter of the legendary Johnny Cash. I have been a Rosanne Cash fan since I heard her sing on French composer Michel Berger's 1980 album Dreams In Stone. And the concert was free. Again there was the threat of rain but it never did. I live in Etobicoke in west Toronto and on my way home I noticed that it did rain there. It just didn't rain downtown. So I think we got lucky. The opening act for this concert was Canadian singer songwriter Kevin Breit. He played solo but he isn't a folksinger. Breit is from the Sudbury area in Northern Ontario. He led the jazz trio The Sisters Euclid for several years. In recent days he has worked with eclectic singer songwriter Harry Manx. Their 2011 CD Strictly Whatever was released in 2011 on Stony Plain. Breit has also played a lot of sessions with Norah Jones, Cassandra Wilson and most recently Hugh Laurie. I can see why he is in demand as he is a very good guitarist. I liked him but I wouldn't mind seeing him as part of a larger band sometime. Rosanne Cash's band is led by her husband John Levanthal. Levanthal has a couple of Grammys on his mantel for producing and writing the 1997 Shawn Colvin hit Sunny Come Home. Since they were married in 1995, Levanthal has done other things but the two write together and he produces her CDs. Rosanne actually has a different band when Levanthal isn't on tour with her. That's why I asked her on Twitter if he was coming. He's a killer guitarist. The other guitarist was Kevin Barry. He started out in the 80s playing with blues guys like Mighty Sam McClain. Today he plays a lot of sessions. He also plays steel guitar. Jon Cowherd was on keyboards. He is a member of the jazz group The Brian Blade Fellowship but he has also toured with Rosanne for several years. Bassist Zev Katz has played with Rosanne since the 80s. And drummer Dan Rieser is a member of Marcy Playground and the Norah Jones led Willie Nelson tribute band The Little Willies. They played a mix of songs, even oldies like Seven Year Ache. And they played a couple of songs from Rosanne's upcoming CD to be released in Jan. 2014. But they played quite a few songs from her latest CD The List. When Rosanne was a teen, her dad was upset that she was listening to crappy music. So he made a list of a hundred songs that she should listen to and gave it to her. Rosanne and producer Levanthal turned it into The List. They performed the Hank Snow song I'm Movin' On, the Bob Dylan song Girl From The North Country and special guest Rufus Wainwright was brought out to sing the Merle Haggard song Silver Wings. Though the concert was over an hour and a half long, it seemed a lot shorter. That's a good thing. So I enjoyed it. And the concert was live streamed on Youtube so you can enjoy it too right here on the blog. The concert starts at about the ten minute mark of the video. Enjoy!

No comments:

Post a Comment