That's pretty much the gist, yeah. But more than a backing ensemble, Ryan felt that the Cardinals should represent an actual artistic entity unto themselves, to the point where he was pretty royally pissed off that Lost Highway wouldn't release their albums without his name on them. I obviously can't speak first-hand about the creative processes of those records, but my impression is that they ended up just being fundamentally Ryan Adams albums, regardless of who else was playing on them (and many people did--the Cardinals were never a static group, often changing lineups from one album to the next).

Honestly, it sounds like lame rationale ("You just haven't listened to them enough, man"), but more than any of Adams' output the Cardinals stuff took the longest to gestate for me. Your feelings on JCN are more or less an exact reflection of how I felt about it for the first few months I owned it; but gradually, and often outside the context of the record itself (i.e. live performances and iPod shuffles), the songs opened up. I can't really say why, other than that I came to feel that my less-than-stellar mindset at the time was pretty accurately reflected in those songs (which seems like it could be applied to any number of RA albums, but Jacksonville's bleak mortality obsession always felt like the bell-dinger on the Ryan Adams sad-bastard scale to me; he just sounds totally off his rocker in a Tonight's the Night kind of way, and it's enthralling), but it's continued to grow in my esteem over the years. If I really consider it, it's probably still bottom-tier in the Adams catalog, but for me that's kind of like saying a Tom Waits or R.E.M. record is bottom-tier--it pretty much just means I love it a little less than the others.

As for Cold Roses, I wouldn't make any claims about "originality" (especially since I have no more than a cursory knowledge of the Grateful Dead, and that's reputedly who the album harkens back to the most; "Rosebud" is a tribute to Jerry Garcia) but I just think the songwriting, musicianship, and vocal performances are on a higher plain than anything else he's done. Hearing it described as "overlong" has always thrown me for a loop; it's really the only Adams album I sometimes think isn't long enough, which is a strange and commendable accomplishment for a double album. Weirdly, I came to that record in the exact opposite frame of mind from how I approached JCN--emotionally stable for the first time in a while--and the album hit home in the same fundamental way: it felt like an all-too-authentic depiction of my life at that particular moment, in which I felt spiritually cleansed and, if not happy, content with the cards life had dealt me.

Anyway, long story short: I love those albums. Hopefully revisiting them unlocks something for you.

I'm always a little...skeptical isn't the word...uncertain at the least, about how much of Ryan's creative story is real and how much is just history-building. The curmudgeon in me still suspects that he identified certain behaviors or events that were most effective at developing an air of "rogue but vibrant artist" for other singers, and willfully played up to that with the expectation that it would (correctly, by and large) affect the way people perceived him.

Lost Highway has a reputation for being a songwriter's label, and a nurturing one at that. Nothing about their behavior with other artists, or the types of records they've released in the past, supports the idea that they are in the habit of refusing completed studio albums or of demanding significant artistic changes. I kind of wonder if the whole idea of shelved material wasn't a collaboration between the two to create an air of mystery and of "lost" classics, simply because it would benefit the artist's standing and, should it work, pretty much produce its own hype and promotion should the label ever get around to releasing them in years to come.

The Cardinals are fantastic players, though (whatever they were sold as, they really are a fantastic backing band), and Ryan is/was a hell of a songwriter...I don't really CARE if the whole story is true. It doesn't change the music one iota. It just doesn't sound particularly realistic to me, is all.

Given Ryan's behavior in the past and Lost Highway's otherwise spotless reputation (you're right that their supposed "oppression" seems to be just a Ryan Adams thing, which is fishy), I wouldn't be shocked to find out the whole thing was a sham, or at least an exaggeration. But it seems odd that he would cut the last 5 songs from Gold and release it as a single album with a bonus disc instead of the planned double, or chop one of his best albums into two halves (Love is Hell), or release a compilation of unreleased tracks that he's repeatedly expressed disdain for (Demolition), or put out an album of mock butt-rock as a proper follow-up to his most commercially successful album just for the hell of it (Rock 'N' Roll; and, okay, that one's not totally unrealistic). Like I said, I'm not necessarily discounting the theory, but it seems like an inordinate amount of intentional career and critical sabotage just to "build a legend."

Ryan is kind of a douchebag. The most patient and artist friendly label around would have problems with talent like him. If it was legend building then why is he still not signed with them? I think Ryan is probably guilty of constructing a character to some extent but I doubt his label played role in that.

lol this isn't a sham...come on...more likely JFK assassination is a conspiracy than this is all orchestrated...

digm's off his rocker.

Just to clarify, what I mean when I say "I wouldn't be shocked if it was a sham" is that I don't think it's impossible that Ryan might have taken small kernels of truth (i.e. Lost Highway encouraging him to write something "accessible" after how viable Gold turned out to be) and exacerbated them in order to build a character for himself. I definitely don't think it's beyond him to lie to the press, at least--he's contradicted himself in interviews dozens of times, dramatized his work (I seem to recall him going on about how he was "possessed" during the making of Love is Hell, for example--"I was so fucked up, man; I didn't even know 'Hotel Chelsea Nights' was basically 'Purple Rain'"), and generally acted like an assclown.

So I don't think McP's necessarily entirely off the mark. But again, evidence suggests that there was definitely something going on--there are just too many suicidal moments in his catalog (no pun intended) for me to fully buy into the idea that he was just trying to look cool. If he was, it was terribly fucking misguided.

Easy Tiger is probably my favorite RA record start to finish, though I could make a pretty good 10 to 12 "Best of" playlist that doesn't even touch on that record. And even though it's billed as a Ryan solo record, I believe I read in numerous articles (a long feature in Paste sticks out) that in practice it was truly a Cardinals record but that Lost Highway wanted to market it just as Ryan.

It's another case of material supposedly being shelved on the basis that it wouldn't sell, or something--to be honest I'm not really sure what the explanation was, or if there even was any. The story goes that Ryan had recorded III/IV with the Cardinals to be his next release after the '05 trilogy (hence the titles--they're the "third" and "fourth" Cardinals albums, respectively), but Lost Highway were bugging him for a solo album in the vein of Heartbreaker, so he reworked a bunch of songs he had sitting in the vault and wrote a few new ones with the Cardinals, and the net result was an album that sounds...absolutely nothing like Heartbreaker. In fact, it pretty much just sounds like what it is: a Cardinals record.

Of course, if that's true, the irony is that the first album he made after he created PAX-AM and had his own means of distributing whatever he wanted to record was exactly the kind of album Lost Highway wanted. Unless you count Orion, I guess, but I'd rather just forget that actually happened.

But yeah, I agree that Easy Tiger is fantastic, and for the most part I think those older songs (particularly "These Girls," which developed from a pre-Heartbreaker track called "Hey There Mrs. Lovely" that had a nice tune but embarrassing lyrics) benefitted from an older, wiser songwriter's touch.

Oh my god, whatever, ect. Is probably my favorite ET track. 'if I could i'd fold myself away like a card table'

Agreed. Easily my favorite track on the record.
"Everybody tips but not enough to knock me over…:

Would anybody be interested in a RA/Whiskeytown tournament?

Yep.

Been on a RA binge these last few days. Managed to get copies of the gigs I've been to. And I've been reminded that I missed one of those 2004 shows after he broke his wrist 1-2 weeks earlier. Man to have seen those LiH shows.

I'm game.

I'm in

yes

Cool we have 7. Let's see if another 9 put their hands up. Then we can get into some crevices.