Rosanne Cash Expands 'The Wheel' For 30th Anniversary

09-13-2023

(KL) Renowned singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of her landmark album The Wheel with an expanded, remastered deluxe edition, out November 17.

The Wheel 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition includes the original, remastered album, alongside a second live LP, featuring Cash's 1993 Austin City Limits appearance and a rare broadcast of the Columbia Records Radio Hour. With the masters now owned by Rosanne, this is the first-ever vinyl release for The Wheel, and the inaugural release for RumbleStrip Records (Thirty Tigers), the label founded by Cash and husband John Leventhal, six-time Grammy winning producer and songwriter.

Formats include the deluxe 2LP 180-gram vinyl edition, the original remastered LP, and a 2CD deluxe edition, available for pre-order here.

In November, 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.

Recorded in the early '90s when Rosanne first moved to New York City and co-produced by Cash and Leventhal, The Wheel sparked a reinvention of her sound and career.

The album 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, 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, 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."

Upcoming plans from RumbleStrip Records include a series that re-explores Rosanne's recently-acquired catalog of master recordings from 1978-1993. In early 2024, the label will release Leventhal's first solo album.

The Wheel 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition was produced by John Jackson (ex-Legacy Recordings, The Jayhawks) and long-time manager Danny Kahn, who will both oversee the future archival releases and run the label's operations, and mastered by Dan Millice.

Watch the live performance of The Wheel from Austin City Limits, from July 26, 1993, below: