Joan Osborne’s band electrified The Firehouse last Saturday night with its unique montage of blues, rock and soul, as it tours to support the new album Righteous Love. Osborne is now a seasoned songstress who leaves her audience satisfied. Simply give yourself over to the wildness and the subtlety of her voice, and she’ll reel you in with her tremendous energy.
Osborne said on Saturday that she is glad to be back making music, doing what she loves. It’s been five years since the release of her successful single, “One of Us,” off her debut album, Relish. But Osborne has not been on hiatus.
Instead, she’s been on a journey, one that’s taken her through various landscapes of musical influence and through the lowlands of a lost record deal.
In the past five years, Osborne has traveled to Asia, including a trip to India where she studied qawwali, a type of sacred singing. She also sang duets with Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and the Chieftans. Osborne has continued to cultivate her public life outside the music world by creating an online magazine and continuing her support of Planned Parenthood. On the new album, Osborne’s sound is strong, and her style is more eclectic than ever.
But Righteous Love hit more than a few snags on its way to completion. Namely, Osborne lost her record deal. “I was trying to make a record I liked, working with different producers…and I guess the label got tired of waiting,” she says. Osborne ended up funding much of the recording process herself, working with producer Mitchell Froom (who also produced Suzanne Vega).
The result is an enticing group of songs that reveal new facets of Osborne’s vocal personality. The texture of her voice is smoother on Righteous.
On tracks like “Hurricane” where Osborne lets loos in a style reminiscent of Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary,” her vocals are soulful, concentrated, but almost without a trace of the catches and warbles that were so predominant in Relish. Osborne’s live performance, however, demonstrated that she could still growl, rasp and improvise with delightful ease.
The most remarkable aspect of her performance was her ability to turn a groan into a flawless high note, never compromising the intensity of her deliver. And Osborne delivers on many levels.
When first taking to the stage Saturday night, Osborne shied away from the microphone until the music started. But as the exotic opening sitar notes from “If I Was Your Man” resonated through the rafters of The Firehouse, her hips began to swivel and her body to churn along with the music.
Osborne’s presence as a performer was sensual. She prowled the stage, dancing provocatively while belting out her songs and nearly driving her band mates to distraction. She and lead guitarist Jack Petruzzelli seemed almost to blush as Osborne’s comehither vibes.
The band continued the set with “Running Out Of Time” and “Safety in Numbers,” two R&B-pop hybrids off the new album. These songs sound very funky and 70ish on the album, but performed live, Osborne fave them rawer edges and smoothed out the middles in true-blues form.
During her cover of George Wright’s “Love Is Alive” (also from the new album), Osborne looked like she might fly into the crowd, her energy was so strong as she performed at the very edge of the stage. She feigned innocence as she sang sweetly, crinkling her nose during “Baby Love,” coyly delivering the tune.
Dipping back into Relish material, Osborne proved that she could still turn it out with he down-home Kentucky roots. The clanging mandolin of “St. Teresa” is the perfect backdrop for Osborne’s improvisational wonders. She seemed to give in completely to her performance, a trait that earns her a deserved comparison to Janis Joplin.
But when the music paused, her speaking voice seemed impossibly small, considering we had just heard her roar a moment earlier.
“Ladder” was perhaps the highlight of the show, as Osborne reached the pinnacle of intensity while conveying the perplexity of the song’s emotion, “you wanted a long flirtation/ your plane doesn’t ever land/ some things I don’t want to look at/ I don’t want to understand.”
The end of “Ladder” became a sing along, with the crowd chanting the chorus, “today and everyday.”
Osborne ended the show with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Fell My Love,” a song of supplication off Righteous. Joan Osborne doesn’t need to supplicate. She simply needs to sing and make music in the uncompromising fashion she already knows.
