A lot of people are good a composing year end list. Taking that a step further, friend asked me and a group of acquaintances to list our favorite 10 CD’s and not to put too much thought or time in making the list, but to list them of the top of our heads. My list included the predictable, but one CD which I was initially surprised was Rosanne Cash’s 1990 release, Interiors. Mind you it is a great sounding album, engineered by Steely Dan Grammy winning engineer the late Roger Nichols . It also marked Cash’s debut as a producer. Obviously she learned a thing or two about sympathetic production from her then husband Rodney Crowell.

The production and sound are amazing but those things only enhance the earnest and aching songwriting on this album. Unlike the preceding album, the best-selling King’s Record’s Shop, Cash writes or co-writes the entire album. The result is the album reflects the unraveling of the marriage to Crowell, and the anguish someone going through such a trauma would know. Cash doesn’t give the listener much hope in the album, but that’s OK because even in her utter despair there is beauty. Cash hires a fantastically expressive band. Chief among them is guitarist W. Steuart Smith, and alumnus of Crowell’s band and now long time Eagle’s guitarist. Smith is the king of good taste and economy and Cash puts his talents to good use throughout the album. Interestingly the album also features then future husband John Leventhal on guitar, soon to be ex-husband Rodney Crowell on vocals and acoustic guitar ( on the stand out track, “On The Surface”) as well as big names such as Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Connor, Larry Campbell and Vince Melamed. Despite the number of so called ‘country’ players the album has an adult contemporary sheen to it.

The sound may explain why the album only made 175 on the Billboard album chart and 23 on the country chart. Quite a disappointment since its predecessor spawned four #1 country singles and reached #6 on the country chart.

Every track on interiors is a stand out, but “On The Inside” ,“On The Surface”, and “I Want A Cure”, represent the essence of the album. Rosanne cash would go on to bigger commercial success and have many more great albums ( hopefully to include the forth coming 2014 album The River & The Thread, but not one a touching and evocative as Interiors.

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