Rosanne Cash has more family ties to the country world than anyone, but she has turned her back on Nashville for a new career as a New York pop singer. Or so she thinks. Her first non-Nashville album, 10 Song Demo, may have a low twang quotient, but it pursues the main concerns of traditional country music: troubled marriages and midlife crises.

The title, 10 Song Demo, is misleading on two counts: It actually contains 11 songs, and it's not really a demo. Although almost every track begins solely with Cash's voice and acoustic guitar, and is only gradually filled in with tasteful coloring by electric guitar, bass and keyboards, the arrangements don't sound unfinished as much as they sound stripped to their essence. And because these songs are about getting past distractions to confront the bedrock issues in ending one marriage, starting another and turning 40, the arrangements are just right. Cash is an inspired vocal interpreter, and her husky alto doesn't need much instrumental support to get every mixed emotion out of a line like "I'll kiss you till we turn to stone/I'll fight you till we're blind," from "Bells and Roses."

The singer's verbal meditations are boiled down to shorter lines and plainer language on 10 Song Demo. Instead of sounding like sprawling, graduate-school poetry, Cash's new lyrics have the tight meter and homespun wisdom of old Appalachian ballads. When she wants to complain about a man who is scared of making a commitment on "If I Were a Man," she sings, "If I were a man, I'd be so sweet/I'd give me everything I need."

Maybe Loretta Lynn wouldn't feel comfortable with the hushed, meditative arrangements on 10 Song Demo, but she would certainly recognize the subject matter. And she would no doubt admire the skill with which Rosanne Cash gets every last emotion onto tape. (RS 733)

GEOFFREY HIMES