When Rosanne Cash began working on her eighth solo album The Wheel in the early ’90s, she was at a crossroads in her life. Cash had moved to New York City from Nashville and as her 13-year marriage with Rodney Crowell was coming to an end, a new relationship with her music, and producer and husband John Leventhal, was beginning to flourish.
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To commemorate the 30th anniversary of The Wheel is a deluxe remaster, out November 17, featuring the original, remastered album, co-produced by Cash and Leventhal, along with a second live LP, including a rare recording of Cash’s appearance on the Columbia Records Radio Hour and her Austin City Limits performance from July 26, 1993.
The Wheel was an album Cash needed to make during that moment in time. Reinventing the pathways of her sound and of her career, The Wheel encompassed a rebirth in life and love. “It’s satisfying and sweet to reintroduce ‘The Wheel’ in this 30th anniversary year,” said Cash in a previous statement. “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.”
Cash initially wrote seven songs for The Wheel—the title track, “Sleeping in Paris,” “If There’s a God on My Side,” “From the Ashes,” “Roses in the Fire,” “You Won’t Let Me In,” and “Change Partners,” and shared them with Leventhal. “I told him they were ‘elemental,’ full of references to the natural world: wind, fire, rain, moon, snow,” said Cash. “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 session also joined Cash with a collection of musicians and friends, including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers‘ Benmont Tench, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Catherine Russell, Marc Cohn, Steuart Smith, and Bruce Cockburn, among others. “John and I grew closer with every session, and by the end of the record we were a couple,” said Cash. “The music was both a revelation and the revelator.”
The album marked the beginning of a lifelong creative relationship between Cash and Leventhal, who were married in 1995. After The Wheel, the couple went on to work on Cash’s albums 10 Song Demo, Rules of Travel, Black Cadillac, The List, and three-time Grammy-winning The River & the Thread in 2014. Both also worked on Cash’s most recent release, She Remembers Everything, in 2018, along with other side projects.
The two are currently working on the score for an upcoming Broadway musical, Norma Rae, based on the 1979 film of the same name following the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton and her fight for labor rights. Leventhal also produced the track “Crumble,” featuring Cash, from The National‘s 2023 album Laugh Track.
[RELATED: Rosanne Cash Calls Singing with The National ‘A Dream’]
The Wheel 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, produced by John Jackson and long-time manager Danny Kahn and mastered by Dan Millice, will be available on vinyl for the first time and released on Cash and Leventhal’s newly launched label RumbleStrip Records (Thirty Tigers). Under the label, Cash will also release additional material from her recently-acquired master recordings from 1978 through 1993, along with introducing some new artists, and RumbleStrip, Leventhal’s forthcoming debut solo album, set for release in early 2024.
Signed copies of a limited-edition exclusive swirl vinyl are also available at Cash’s online store. Prior to the release of The Wheel remaster, Cash and Leventhal will also kick off a series of shows, along with in-store appearances, revisiting the making of the album and the stories behind some of the songs.
Their Reinventing The Wheel Tour kicks off on November 14 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and will run through January 26, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Wheel 30th Anniversary Track Listing:
Side 1
1. “The Wheel”
2. “Seventh Avenue”
3. “Change Partners”
4. “Sleeping in Paris”
5. “From the Ashes”
Side 2
1. “The Truth About You”
2. “The Tears”
3. “Falling Down”
4. “Roses in the Fire”
5. “Fire of the Newly Alive”
6. If There’s a God on My Side”
Side 3 – Live at Austin City Limits (7/26/1993)
1. “The Wheel”
2. “Seventh Avenue”
3. “I’ll Change For You”
4. “Crescent City” (Lucinda Williams cover)
5. “Sleeping In Paris”
Side 4 – Columbia Records Radio Hour (5/16/1993)
1. “Seventh Avenue”
2. “Roses In The Fire”
3. “The Truth About You”
4. “What We Really Want”
5. “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” (from My Fair Lady)
6. “The Wheel”
