Worth Another Listen - Joan Osborne

After I ran the last Sunday Worship, I was prepared to be running another post on her as an artist I really love. But I also got a tweet from one of my indie boys, Aiden James. It said:



So, at that point, I knew I had to do it, because once I can earn a little bit of 'street cred' with an artist I love that will be backed by working singers, I might get the free pass when I put up one of my pop wunderkind that I am sure has people rolling their eyes. And it will be happening soon, since I love my Pop music, and have my own fair share of guilty pleasures. But no matter, because Aiden actually was talking about one of my two favorites songs from Joan's album Relish. He sent the link to St. Teresa, which is just a brilliant vocal performance of a great song.



Relish was released in 1995, with 12 songs, most of which were written by Osborne, Rick Chertoff and two members of the Hooters, Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman. In fact, it was those four who wrote St. Teresa. And, with the addition of Don Glen Vliet, they also wrote my other favorite, Right-Hand Man. Again Osborne puts on a show with the vocals, although in a totally different way than in the St. Teresa. Osborne flat out rocks the hell out of the song, giving a strong and nuanced performance that was just as steeped in sexuality as it was in meaning. I mean, after listening to it repeatedly, I was nearly ready to go str8 for Joan Osborne.



The big single off the album was, of course, One of Us, featured in the earlier post. For the life of me, with the three very different songs all delivered with such ease and vocal prowess, I have no idea why Osborne didn't become a much bigger star. I mean, part of the reason was it took five years to get a follow-up album, and then the 3rd came out the next year. The third was How Sweet It Is, a album of covers of a variety of songs from Motown favorites like the title song, to The Weight by The Band. Hard to say how much airtime radio would be giving those covers.



Nonetheless, I think she is exceptional. In 2008, she came out with the new album, Little Wild One, which reunited the writing team from Relish for many of the songs, although it was not on a major studio label, so again, granted little airtime on the radio.



You can find out more about Joan Osborne on her official website here.