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Home , Andy Hess, Jesse Harris, John Leventhal, John Paul White, Ollabelle, Rodney Crowell

: The River and The Thread

Thu, Oct 2 Rosanne Cash Vocals, , Vocals, Music Director Royce Hall Kevin Barry Guitars 8pm Glenn Patscha Keyboards Andy Hess Bass Dan Rieser Drums, Percussion Miriam Crowe Lighting Designer/Operator RUNNING TIME: DJ Mendel Video Designer Approximately two hours; David Mann Sound Mixing, Tour Manager One intermission ABOUT THE ARTISTS

#MyMusicMap in the Rosanne Cash - vocals, guitar Pop Up Library With The River and The Thread, Cash has added the next chapter to a remarkable period Visit the West Lobby library space of creativity. Her last two albums, Black Cadillac (2006) and The List (2009), were both for listening stations that explore nominated for GRAMMY Awards; The List—an exploration of essential songs as selected song selections mapping musical and given to Rosanne by her father, —was also named Album of the Year by the tastes and memories of our Americana Music Association. In addition, her best-selling 2010 memoir, Composed, was audience. Before the performance described by the Chicago Tribune as “one of the best accounts of an American life you will and during intermission. likely ever read.”

Cash, who has charted 21 Top 40 country singles, including 11 Number Ones, wrote all of the new album’s songs with her longtime collaborator (and husband) John Leventhal, who also served as producer, arranger, and guitarist. Featuring a long list of guests—from young MEDIA SPONSORS: guns like () and Derek Trucks to such legends as and White—The River and The Thread is a kaleidoscopic examination of the geographic, emotional, and historic landscape of the American South. The album’s unique sound, which draws from country, , gospel, and rock, reflects the soulful mix of music that traces its history to the region.

“When we started forming the idea for this record,” says Cash, “it felt like going to be the third part of a trilogy—with Black Cadillac mapping out a territory of mourning and loss and then The List, celebrating my family’s musical legacy. I feel this record ties past and present together through all those people and places in the South I knew and thought I had left behind.” MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER:

“Our longing makes us human, and makes us reach. That’s good.”—Rosanne Cash

Here at the Center, we overwhelmingly agree with that sentiment. In fact, it’s a fairly apt encapsulation of what drives us, what motivates us and what attracts us to artists, performers, writers—creators and makers of all kinds.

We talk often about the power and potential that comes from leaning forward—toward one another, toward ideas, into new landscapes of thought and emotion.

Rosanne Cash has made a career out of leaning forward. Her songwriting is poetic in impulse and wide-ranging in scope. She’s mapped stories of mourning and loss, of legacy and hope and now, in her latest album, created a map of people and places and moments in time from the American south, which provided inspiration for The River and the Thread.

You’ll read more about the fascinating journey that fueled the creation of this lush and immersive album in the program notes that follow. Tonight, you’ll hear the stories for yourself, brought to vivid and poignant life here in this The literal journey toward The River and The Thread began when moment by a performer of exceptional range and exceptional Arkansas State University contacted Cash about their interest in depth. purchasing her father’s boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. A series of benefit concerts to get the project started featured artists like Inside each of us is a map of experience, of memory, longing, George Jones, , Dierks Bentley, and expectation, dreams and desires. For most of us that map of the Civil Wars. our lives is accentuated by a personal soundtrack. Music is rife with the ability to unveil memories, weaving the stories While helping with the purchase and renovation of the Dyess of our own lives and lives of others through our experiences-- house, Cash and Leventhal took several extended trips through the much like a river weaves itself through a landscape or a Southern states—visiting William Faulkner’s house; Dockery Farms, thread weaves through the warp and weft of a tapestry. the plantation where Howlin’ Wolf and Charley Patton worked and sang; Natchez and the blues trail. “The Thread” in the album’s title How fortunate we are to be in the presence of an artist comes from Cash’s friend Natalie Chanin, a master seamstress in who understands this so well, who inhabits her music so Florence, Alabama. “Natalie was teaching me to sew,” says Cash, thoroughly and shares with us so generously. “and she said, ‘You have to learn to love the thread,’ in this beautiful accent, and it hit me as an enormous metaphor.” The line appears in Welcome Rosanne. We’re ready to take this journey with you. the album’s opener, “A Feather’s Not a Bird,” a deeply swampy shuffle which Cash describes as “a mini-travelogue of the South, and of the soul.”

These journeys repeatedly took them through Memphis, the city of Cash’s birth and a place that had a profound impact on the album’s direction. They visited the studio of , and watched their son strum a guitar in the same room where her father cut his first record. “The connection to Memphis is powerful and deep” says Cash.

As the themes and subjects of The River and The Thread emerged, Cash gradually envisioned how she wanted to connect the dots into a cohesive work, connecting her own story to the rich history of a region. “I guess I weave in and out of these songs, in a way,” she says. “I don’t think I had a complete map of it, but John really became a guide. We would write something and say, ‘This is this part of the geography, both emotional and physical.’”

Rosanne Cash acknowledges that, even with fifteen albums and four books behind her, it was difficult to start writing songs again after spending several years immersed in the masterful compositions featured on The List. “You cannot keep that in your mind, except as an inspiration, a standard to aspire to,” she says. “To say, ‘I’m going to write a song as great as “Take These Chains”’—you’re not! So the only way to not get dismantled by that is to stay connected to your own muse, and immerse yourself completely in what you’re doing so appears on Rosanne’s current recording The River & he Thread, as it can be as rich and authentic as it can possibly be. That’s all you can well as the recent acclaimed collaboration between Nora Jones and hope for.” Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong, For Everly.

With The River and The Thread, she has risen to that challenge— Miriam Crowe - Lighting designer/operator and emerged with a beautiful and haunting album, one of the finest Miriam Nilofa Crowe regularly designs for Latin Grammy and works in an extraordinary career. Grammy-winner Lila Downs, Ko-Ryo Dance Theater, The Drilling Company, and Strindberg Rep. Recent projects include home/sick John Leventhal - guitars, vocals, music director (The Assembly), Honky (Urban Stages), The Penalty (Apothetae), John Leventhal is a GRAMMY Award-winning musician, producer, What It Means to Disappear Here (Ugly Rhino), Gorilla (SATC), songwriter, and recording engineer who has produced albums for RescYou (Eckert+Sorenson-Jolink), Project RUIN (Carlye Eckert Rosanne Cash, Michelle Branch, , , Marc and Lucie Baker), Bridesburg (Miscreant Theater), Symphony for Cohn, , and many others. As a musician he has worked the Dance Floor (Daniel Bernard Roumain), Life after Dark (Dana with all of the above as well as artists such as , Dolly Leong), Flags (Firefly Theater @ 59E59), Woman in Waiting (Farber Parton, Willie Nelson, , , Bruce Foundry), Beowulf (Lincoln Center Festival), and The Intelligent Hornsby and . As a songwriter he has had over 100 Design of Jenny Chow (Yale Rep). She is a founding member of songs recorded by various artists. In 1998 he won the Grammy for Wingspace Theatrical Design. www.wingspace.com/miriam Record and Song Of The Year for producing and co-writing the song “.” He lives with his wife Rosanne Cash and their DJ Mendel - Video designer children in . A long time collaborator with Rosanne Cash, D.J. Has directed and video designed her last two concert tours: Black Cadillac and The Kevin Barry - guitars List, as well as music videos for her songs, Motherless Children and Multi-instrumentalist Kevin Barry is based in Boston. He teaches I’m Moving On. Most recently he designed the video for Rosanne’s guitar at the Berklee College of Music and tours regularly with Art and Ideas lecture for the APAP key note speech in New York City Rosanne Cash, Peter Wolf, and Ray LaMontagne. He (2013). has also performed and/or recorded with Jonatha Brooke, , , Mighty Sam McClain, Sarah DJ also has worked with world renowned composer/violinist Daniel McLaughlin and the Consuelo Candelaria group. Along with Bernard Roumain - directing two of Daniels music/theater pieces - acoustic and electric guitars, he has disciplines in lap steel, pedal Darwin’s Meditation for the People of Lincoln and Symphony for the steel, dobro, bass, and high strung requinto. Dance Floor. Both shows premiered in NY at the Next Wave Festival at the Academy of Music as well as touring the U.S. Glenn Patscha - keyboards Born in Winnipeg, Glenn Patscha moved to New Orleans in 1989 For the past nine years, D.J. has directed all of Cynthia Hopkins’ to study with Ellis Marsalis at The University Of New Orleans. He work including the award winning Accidental Nostalgia (Obie went on to play and record with many New Orleans icons young Award), Must Don’t Whip ‘Um, The Success of Failure (Bessie and old such as Brian Blade, Nicholas Payton and Leroy Jones. A Award), The Truth: A Tragedy and most recently This Clement recording and touring stint with Marianne Faithfull reignited an World. All of these shows premiered in NY at St. Ann’s Warehouse interest in composing and songwriting. After moving to New York and have toured the U.S. and . City in 1998 Patscha started the highly acclaimed band Ollabelle. signed to his imprint DJ has directed two feature films, Make Pretend ( which he also DMZ. He has recorded and performed with , Sheryl wrote) and Planet Earth: Dreams, written by avant-garde theater Crow, Bettye Lavette, , Cubanismo, Madeline legend Richard Foreman, as well as numerous shorts films. Peyroux, ,, Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson and Loudon Wainwright among many others. He has also scored the David Mann - Sound mixing, tour manager Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning film Sangre De Mi Sangre with David Mann has been on the scene as a recording engineer and Brian Cullman, award winning Finnish Film Kukkulan Kuningas - live sound mixer for many years. His list of associations is a whose On Thin Ice and a number of short films by photographer Mary Ellen who of the music industry. Emmylou Harris, , The Mark and Martin Bell. Preservation Hall Band, Herbie Hancock, Suzanne Vega, Aimee Mann, Marc Cohn, Ingrid Michaelson, The Waterboys only covers Recently Patscha has produced recordings for The Holmes Brothers some of the artists he has worked with.. David has been working and Marc Cohn and a record with his new band The Big Bright with with Rosanne since 2011. Fiona McBain (Ollabelle) and Liz Tormes. Some photographs and moving images have been generously Andy Hess - bass provided by: Bassist Andy Hess is a New York City based musician whose credits cross a number of genres. He has toured and recorded with Joan James Jaworowicz and The Jack Robinson Archive, Memphis, TN. Osborne, , and jazz guitarist ’s Dave Anderson, Little Rock, AR. The Oxford American Magazine Überjam band. From 2003-2008 Andy was a member of Gov’t Mule. and The Library of Congress. Other studio work includes sessions with , , Robben Ford and Grammy nominated blues man Bill Sims Jr. Andy is the newest member of Rosanne’s band.

Dan Rieser - drums, percussion Dan Rieser has been active in the NYC Singer-Songwriter/Jazz scene since the early ‘90’s. He has performed and/or recorded with , , Marcy Playground, Two Ton Boa, Chris Cheek, Seamus Blake, The Bloomdaddies, The Little Willies, Jenny Scheinman, Marc Cohn, and Madeline Peyroux. He The boards of CAP UCLA and Design for Sharing would like to thank all the members who have made a choice to join them in supporting arts education and the art of performance at UCLA.

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