Like many people, I first became aware of Joan Osborne through her hit "(What if God Was) One of Us." The album which contains it, "Relish," includes some other solid hits like the driving "St. Teresa" and "Right Hand Man."
Joan Osborne
But it wasn’t until more recently when I heard her sing a version of the Grateful Dead’s "Brokedown Palace," that I began to recognize the amazing depth of this woman’s soulful voice.
Osborne performs tomorrow night (Friday) at the Cascade Theatre in Redding with the Holmes Brothers and songwriter Paul Thorn in what should be a stellar evening of soul music.
Osborne got to know the Holmes Brothers through the New York City blues scene in the early 1990s. She later produced The Holmes Brothers 2001 album "Speaking in Tongues." I was blown away by the Holmes Brothers, revered by Willie Nelson, Levon Helm and many others, when they played MarketFest a few years back. At the time I asked Wendell Holmes, "Where have you guys been all my life?"
The Holmes Brothers
"Man, we’ve been in the music protection program," he told me, laughing. Something like the witness protection program, I suppose.
Tomorrow night, the Holmes Brothers will perform a set of their music then join Osborne and some of her band members for a set.
I’m also anxious to hear Thorn, a former prizefighter and the son of a Pentecostal preacher. From what I’ve heard on recording, his excellent songs come packaged with a big brand of Mississippi soul. Tickets to this show are $30 to $40 and available by calling 243-8877 or visiting www.cascadetheatre.org .
Paul Thorn
Osborne was going to film school in New York before she really got bitten by the music bug. She told me in a recent phone interview that people like Etta James, Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner were her inspiration. She learned how to phrase and use restraint with her voice, which is such a captivating element to her sound.
"I really learned (restraint) fairly early on in that blues scene," she said. "I listened to recordings of myself and It almost felt like I was screaming at people. I made a very conscious decision to dial it back when I was really just learning how to sing. If someone comes to see concert, there are all sorts of colors and textures to a person’s voice that you can hear. Why restrict yourself to red and black when you can use the whole rainbow?"
Osborne said she feels blessed that her success has allowed her to pursue many shades of music. She’s performed with everyone from Luciano Pavarotti to Michael Franti and Spearhead, Bob Dylan, The Dead, Stevie Wonder and Melissa Etheridge. She just finished a long series of dates in Las Vegas performing with Cheap Trick in a show called "Sgt. Pepper Live," a tribute to Beatles music. She blew people away with her version of "The Long and Winding Road."
"I definitely enjoy the challenge of pushing myself out of my familiar world," Osborne said. "To me, that’s where real energy of live performance is."
Osborne gravitates to great songs, and her determent is often whether the song can it hold up to different interpretations.
"Great songs are able to be interpreted by so many people in different ways," she said. "For me to do a song, it’s got to be something I feel like I can sing every night for year and find something different in it every time I sing it. I’ve been doing ‘The Long and Winding Road.’ Every night there’s some part of that song, where it’s like being hit with a sledge hammer. It’s where you allow what’s happening in your life to be drawn out in the music."
Osborne’s long, winding road leads to Redding on Friday night. You may not want to miss this one.
