Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Joan Osborne, who found fame in 1995 with the top 10 single “One of Us,” will be performing Friday evening at the Chocolate Church Arts Center. Her “Acoustic Duo” set with guitarist Keith Cotton is the latest tour in Osborne’s colorful career, which includes multiple stints with members of the Grateful Dead and an onstage appearance with Bob Dylan.
Osborne recently spoke with The Times Record about the “Acoustic Duo” tour, her upcoming Dylan cover album and how the music industry has changed since the 1990s.
The Times Record: When was the last time you visited Maine?
Joan Osborne: I was up there a couple summers ago playing in Ogunquit, and I’ve played in Maine a handful of other times over the years. I spent a summer in Southwest Harbor back in the ‘80s. I worked in a kitchen and had a couple of other jobs, biked around a lot. I love Maine, it’s such a beautiful place.
TR: How did you come to learn about the Chocolate Church Arts Center?
JO: My publicist mentioned it to me, and I wasn’t familiar with it. When I hear about a place I don’t know I like to learn more about it, and it seems like a perfect venue for this show. Audiences have talked to us and feel like it’s a special thing to be able to see us in these smaller venues.
TR: What sets the “Acoustic Duo” performances apart from what you’ve done in the past?
JO: It’s something that we’ve been doing for a handful of years now. For me it’s this challenge of taking these songs from a full band arrangement and distilling them down to an essence of voice and guitar. It’s a little bit frightening when you don’t have a band around you to hide behind, but your interpretation of the songs comes out. I love doing both, but this is more of a listening experience, wonderfully intimate. It’s a very emotional way of experiencing the songs.
For the set list we dipped into songs from all across the albums that we’ve done. The “Relish” album just had its 20th anniversary, so we definitely want to honor that. We will certainly be singing from “Love and Hate,” which came out a couple years ago.
TR: You’ve covered a lot of Bob Dylan in the past. What intrigues you about singing his songs?
JO: We had a series of shows in March at Cafe Carlyle (in Manhattan) where we sang nothing but Dylan songs for two weeks. I’ve been fortunate enough to play onstage with Dylan, so to be able to focus on his work, I feel like an actress does when performing Shakespeare. We’ve had such a great time playing his songs live that we decided we would record an album. That will start in late November.
We’ll be singing some of his songs in Bath. We’ve touched on a lot of his career, stuff like “Tangled Up in Blue,” “You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” “Highway 61 Revisited.” I like to plan things but want to leave some room for spontaneity. One of the best things about seeing live music is that things can change at any moment.
TR: You’ve toured with multiple Grateful Dead alumni over the years, including The Dead back in 2003 and Phil Lesh and Friends more recently. Do you plan to play with them again in the future?
JO: I’m still in touch with Phil. Every now and then I get a call from him and we’ll do a gig. Me and my band went to Japan over the summer so I’ve been busy, and haven’t been able say yes, but I want to keep my hand in that experience. That audience is like no other in popular music. It’s a group of people who are deep music lovers.
TR: What do you think the biggest change in the music industry has been since the mid-’90s?
JO: As everyone says, the advent of the web and the prominence of streaming music as opposed to buying it has changed the reality of the economics in the music industry. For people who do this for a living, the focus has shifted to touring and live music. On one hand, I think that’s a positive thing because that’s what I’ve always liked to do. I’ve always played clubs and liked to tour, so that’s positive for people who are real players and performers. But it’s harder for people to make a living now than it was before, because what you relied on for ends meat is gone … I’m fortunate because I’ve been around long enough to have a fan base, but a lot of people aren’t that lucky.
TR: Describe your creative process when writing a song.
JO: I am like a magpie in a way, in that I try to keep my ears and eyes open for little snippets or bits of conversation that I might hear throughout the day. I try to read a lot of poetry. It rewires my brain to think in a creative way. I collect a lot of ideas over days and weeks and months and end up with a basket of thoughts and try to come up with something out of that. I also have collaborators that I work with. We sit down together and toss our ideas together. Thinking of songwriting as a craft has been very helpful to me in getting over my fear of writing.
TR: Will you be singing “One of Us” on Friday? How is that song still resonating with crowds 20 years after its release?
JO: Yes, we’ll be singing it. The arrangement that we’ve come up with has a beautiful solo piano, just a gorgeous reworking of the song. I understand what it’s like to be a fan at a concert and see that the band is going through the motions. We want to please the crowd. We’ve always found a way to perform the songs that are people’s favorites and present them in new ways.
When (songwriter Eric Bazillion) brought me “One of Us,” I imagined it coming from an innocent perspective of the world. I thought if I was going to record this song I was going to try and have a more childlike view of the world. It must be a song that resonated with the youth of America, because they’ve done it on “American Idol,” “Glee” and so many other covers. We received countless letters saying a lot of young people were interested in the song. The song really had a cultural moment.
TR: Do you plan on doing anything special while you’re in Maine?
JO: If I have time I’ll run over to Bar Harbor. It’s always nice to get back there.
The show at Chocolate Church Arts Center will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 4. Tickets are $30 for advanced purchase and $35 at the door, and can be purchased at chocolatechurch.com.
bgoodridge@timesrecord.com
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