“Dance More” Joan Osborne Urges Her Audiences

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April 27, 2024

By W.B. King–

Crisscrossing the nation over the last 30-plus years performing her unique brand of soulful-Americana-bluesy-pop, Joan Osbourne came to believe that people are not as divided as the media often reports: musical expression, she concluded, remains the great uniter.

“If you listen to just the news, then you allow these media pundits to sort of decide what reality is, and then you’re going to miss out on a lot and allow yourself to be manipulated,” Osborne told The Hudson Independent while discussing the track “Great American Cities” off her latest album, Nobody Owns You (2023). “I fell in love with all the American peoples; oh how I love the musical ways that they talk,” she sings on the uplifting anthem.

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A Mother’s Day

Nobody Owns You, Osborne’s12th album, is among her most personal contributions to date, investigating and addressing a series of recent “emotionally fraught” cathartic challenges, “One of those things was turning 60 and using that opportunity to really take stock,” she shared. “When you get to that point, your mortality becomes less of this thing that you can pretend isn’t ever going to happen to you, and more and more of a real thing. You have to really ask yourself: ‘Well, if this life is finite, which it is, then what am I going to do different?’”

The tune “I Should Have Danced More” speaks to Osborne’s desire not to take for granted personal and romantic relationships, while recognizing poignant moments that carry more emotional gravitas than previously perceived. The good news, she conveys, is that “It’s not too late” because “I’m still above the ground.”

If the noted song was a message to herself, the album’s title track “Nobody Owns You” is a missive to her daughter, who recently left home for college. Not even “The mother who has given you her yesterdays,” Osborne sings, has the right to this type of ownership.

“As teenage girls do, she’s pulling away from her mom. And I feel like there’s so much that I want to tell her as she’s standing on the cusp of adulthood, but she’s not really interested in hearing what I have to say,” she said. “When you’re a teenage girl, you want to find out things for yourself. So, instead of being able to tell her, I just put these things into a song. And that’s what that song is really for. It’s just a message to her.”

Reflecting on her own teenage journey that would bring her from the University of Louisville to New York University (NYU) in the late 1980s, she now better understands how her mother, now, she says, “93 and still going strong,” might have felt.

“If I start to feel sad about my daughter pulling away from me, I have to remember how I was at that age and question myself as to what my relationship was to my own mom. I wasn’t thinking about my mom,” she shared. “I don’t take it personally [with my daughter] and just understand that this is what happens. It’s part of people becoming their own adult self.”

Introspective Minds and Souls

Osborne was initially focused on theatre, and then filmmaking at NYU, but her music career developed organically, sheepishly singing blues standards by the likes of Etta James at piano bars in the Village. This led to meeting bands like the Spin Doctors and Blues Traveler as well as other like-minded troubadours.

With the release of her Grammy-nominated album Relish (1995), including hit singles “St. Theresa” and “One of Us,” Osborne’s star began to rise, never fading, but rather adding to a musical constellation that illuminates the darker corners of introspective minds and souls.

Born into a Catholic family, Osborne does not subscribe to organized religion but supports all religious people who have “pure intentions.” She has taken what she believes to be the “useful and positive” from these traditions but does not get “tied-up” with what the Pope, for example, might say. “Jesus has a message of love and loving each other as if we are one family, because we are, you know…there’s nothing wrong with that if you can really live that way,” she said.

On her latest album, she also takes aim at the devil on the track “Dig a Little Ditch,”in which she sings: “He will tell you pretty stories. He will whisper right in your ear. He’s studied all about your weakness. He knows all about your fear.”

In this conjuring, the devil is not literal but metaphysical, she noted. “I imagine the devil to be a great con man. He doesn’t do all the work, but he lets you dig yourself into a hole by appealing to your ego, appealing to your baser appetites and he gives you the opportunity and manipulates you into a position of giving your soul away.”

Celebrating The Holmes Brothers

Sharing the stage with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Mavis Staples, members of the Grateful Dead and duets with Luciano Pavarotti, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Patti Smith, Emmylou Harris, and Isaac Hayes, among countless others, the eight-time Grammy nominated Osborne has had quite the musical journey.

She holds a special place in her heart for The Holmes Brothers, a soul, blues and gospel band. Sherman Holmes, Osborne said, hosted one of the open mic nights where she got her start. As her fame grew, she never forgot about their kindness and support, later producing two critically acclaimed albums for The Holmes Brothers, including Speaking in Tongues (2001).

“They were really mentors to me early in my career, when I first started playing little clubs in New York City and getting into the blues scene,” she said. “They were like the kings of that scene. They were so influential.”

While two of the three brothers have since passed, the eldest, Sherman, who still performs, is the last vestige of the group. “I am actually in the process, fingers crossed, of starting to make a documentary film about the older brother. There are people who know about them, and the people who know about them really love them,” she continued. “But I don’t think enough people know about them. So, I’m trying to do my part to get them known in a wider way. I would love to be able to do that while he’s still around, so that he can really appreciate it.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Osborne would be involved in a documentary. She was featured in Paul Justman’s celebrated film about The Funk Brothers, Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002),which features Osborne delivering stirring renditions of “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted” and “Heat Wave.”

Happening in the Moment

As Osborne looks forward to returning to the Tarrytown Music Hall on May 4, she shared an interesting insight into the co-headlining band, The Crash Test Dummies, which scored a major hit with “Mmm Mmm Mmm” in the 1990s.

“It’s sort of ironic because the song, ‘(What if God was) One of Us,’ the guy who wrote it, Eric Bazilian, actually wrote it with the Crash Test Dummies in mind and he was going to send it to them,” she shared, adding that this in the first time they have toured together. “But the record producer that we were working with at the time convince him to give me this song instead.”

While Osborne and her band will deliver tunes from albums over her entire career, she said they have dusted off some older songs, including ones from Jewel that have not been played in many years. “We definitely know what the fan favorites are. We listen to the audience and listen to their requests, but I want there to be some mystery around it. And sometimes we change our minds,” she said. “That’s the thing about live performance. You really want to respond to whatever’s happening in the moment.”

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