Coming Up: Joan Osborne at the Alys Stephens Center

With a lengthy career that would make any songwriter jealous, Joan Osborne has been playing for over thirty years, building a steady, growing audience through one earnest performance at a time (and the time in the 90s when she questioned what God would be like if he were “One of Us”).

We spoke with Osborne as she was getting ready to tour the 30th anniversary of Relish, her smash record that will get a vinyl reissue, which ships out on November 12, the day before her Birmingham show at the Alys Stephens Center.

We discussed fan stories, the dreaded sophomore slump, and how a City Stages interaction made Bob Dylan do a double take.

Chris K. Davidson for Magic City Bands: I noticed you’re doing the 30th anniversary tour instead of a year like the 25th. Was it because of COVID since the 25th anniversary was 2020?

Joan Osborne: There wasn’t much we could do during that time, but I do feel like it’s interesting to mark the decade. We were able to get the label to re-release the record and get them to do it on vinyl. It just seemed like everything came together this way in a way that was not going to be possible during COVID.

MCB: It’s been 30 years since Relish came out. How do you view it now as opposed to when you were recording it or when it first came out?

JO: When we were recording it, I didn’t have a lot of big expectations for it. I just knew I wanted it to be something I liked. It wasn’t chasing hit songs or anything like that. The people I admired and still do are artists like B.B. King or Tom Waits, people who have these lengthy careers and aren’t necessarily putting out big hit records. I just wanted it to be something cool and something I could stand behind and feel good about singing the songs night after night.

I didn’t have a lot of big expectations about what would happen with it, but 30 years on, you look back, and it was quite a ride that record took me on. Just in my regular shows, I still sing some of the songs from that record. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to fans about it, and it seems like it struck a chord in a particular way for that generation of people who were coming up at that time. I’ve had a lot of people come up and tell me stories of what the record meant to them or how they got the record because of the song “One of Us,” and there was so much more there that really turned their heads around.

I feel like looking back on it, I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to put something out into the world that had that sort of impact. The fact that there was a hit song was part of what propelled it, but I think the deeper cuts on the record seemed to really mean something to people, and I think that’s all you can really ask for as an artist.

MCB: To your point, when physical media was the thing before streaming took over, the big radio songs drove album sales, so you’d buy the record for that one song, but you’d discover this entire collection of music. For Relish in particular, the diversity of the music is fantastic.

JO: That was an era when people really listened to albums as a whole, and I think that era has pretty much passed right now. People have their AI-coordinated and curated playlists. Unless you’re buying a lot of vinyl, you don’t necessarily sit down and listen to a whole record all the way through. It’s a different listening experience and a different doorway for audiences these days, and I feel very lucky that when I had that career peak, it was still a moment when people were taking it all in, not just picking and choosing the most popular things, but doing a deeper dive on an artist and hearing more of what they had to say. I think that was fortunate for me.

MCB: You said you’ve gotten to talk to fans over the years about the album. What have been some of the surprising fan favorites off the record?

JO: I had a conversation with a man fairly recently at a show, and he got very emotional when we were speaking. He had grown up as a deeply-closeted gay man in a very conservative religious household. Somehow, he was able to get the Relish album. Maybe his parents weren’t paying super close attention or just thought it was a song about God. He said that the song “Dracula Moon” really helped him in this moment where he was really struggling with his identity.

There’s a line in the song that says:
“Love comes down any way it wants to
It doesn’t ask for your permission
Open up your arms
Or it will break you in two”

He said he just listened to that line over and over again, and it gave him some comfort feeling like he was this gay person in a culture that really pathologized it and told him he was wrong or sick or something. He said that was a real talisman to him to feel like someone out there understood and felt like love is good no matter how it lands on you.

That was a very intense conversation. That’s just a very recent example. I had no idea that that line was going to mean what it did to that particular person.

MCB: “One of Us” was such a huge song. What was the experience like when recording the next album? How much pressure were you feeling at that point?

JO: I guess I’m sort of the poster child for the “sophomore slump,” which is when your first record is a big hit and your second record just takes forever. I think it was partly because the record company was expecting me to come up with Relish 2 and the things I was turning into them was not that, so they kept rejecting the things I turned into them. Also, it did a real number on me mentally of feeling like it was all so important and everyone was going to be listening and watching and judging me. I think I was very frightened to come out with anything at all. The creative team I worked with on the Relish album got very busy because that record had done so well. I wasn’t even able to work with them for the second record.

So that was definitely a rough period for me, and one that I’m certainly happy that I’m past now. I think it happens to a lot of people. You do something that feels more free when you’re creating it, and then if people respond to it in a certain way, it freezes you and you feel like you have to do that same thing or everyone else expects you to do that same thing. It’s a difficult time, especially for a young artist.

MCB: Fortunately, you were able to weather that storm and grow an incredible career filled with excellent records.

JO: For me, it was live performing that really saved me because that was my first love. I came up playing bars and clubs in New York City in the late 80s. I really just always loved it. Even though I was in this very difficult place trying to come up with a second record, when I would go out and do a concert, I had that feeling of communion with the audience and the musicians, and that really kept me from going crazy or quitting the business because I thought I couldn’t do it. There was always that touchstone and great feeling of performing that got me through. And it’s still what I love to do the most.

MCB: There’s something about being able to feed off the audience and them feeding off you, this back-and-forth connection.

JO: It’s a magical thing, especially because nowadays there are so few places where people get together in a community. Music and sports are the only two things. We’re all so separated from each other. We’re sitting in our homes with our information streams that we pay attention to or social media or whatever. It’s not easy to find spaces where we can be together with our community and our neighbors. I think live music is serving that need. It’s pretty important these days because there are so few opportunities for that to happen.

MCB: Dylanology is your latest project. What was the impetus behind that?

JO: I had always wanted to do this thing that Ella Fitzgerald did. In the 1950s, she put out a whole series of records called The Songbook Series. She would choose a different songwriter to perform, people like Cole Porter or Duke Ellington. She would pick one songwriter or writing team and do a whole record of their material.

I always thought that was a cool idea. We had an opportunity to do a residency at a place here in New York City called the Cafe Carlyle, which is this fancy, famous cabaret room. I’m not really a cabaret singer, so I wanted to do something that was interesting and special, but also true to me. So I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try out this idea and pick one songwriter and do the whole residency around their material, so we did.

Bob Dylan is always going to be at the top of your list if you’re looking for a writer like that, so we chose Bob Dylan and did this whole deep dive into his catalogue. It was two and a half weeks. Every night was nothing but Bob Dylan songs all night long, and that was the springboard for the studio album that we made in 2017 and also the live album, which we just released this year.

MCB: Is your favorite Bob Dylan song on there?

JO: Well, I love so many of his songs. I mean, he’s got such range and such depth. To pick a favorite song, I just really couldn’t do it, but some of my favorite songs are definitely on there. I love “Highway 61 Revisited” and his more recent song “Highwater.” That’s one of the things about an artist like that that’s so inspiring. He had his huge, huge cultural impact back in the 1960s and yet he has continued to make incredible records.

Even now, he puts out new records. He doesn’t need to do that. He certainly doesn’t need the money. He’s still active as an interesting artist and having this great third act of his career. To me, that’s incredibly inspiring, that you could have a moment early in your career that explodes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to do it and grow and discover things about yourself as a writer.

MCB: He’s definitely one of those artists where you start with a modern artist and trace back the inspiration, and it leads right back to Bob Dylan.

JO: It’s pretty hard to overstate the impact he had and still has on music and the culture at large. You probably have to look at the Beatles to find someone with a similar reach and impact on our culture.

MCB: What is your relationship with Birmingham? Have you come here much?

JO: The first time I came was in 1995, and I played City Stages, which was a really amazing, fun festival. And speaking of Bob Dylan, he was also there at City Stages that year. I covered one of his songs on the Relish album (“Man in the Long Black Coat”). I later found out that his people had heard that version and liked it, and that’s why they invited me to sing a duet with Bob Dylan in the studio.

I remember very distinctly us finishing our set, and then I was backstage getting ready to watch his set. I was right on the side of the stage. He and his band walked past us to go onstage and I remember him doing a double take and saying “hey, is that Joan Osborne?” It was like, oh my God, Bob Dylan knows who I am. That’s crazy.

That’s a very wonderful, treasured memory that I have of my career. It happened at City Stages back in ‘95. And I’ve certainly come back again and again. I think we did a show there with this side project called Trigger Hippy, a band that I was in for a while. I’ve done Birmingham a number of times, but I think that first time is hard to beat.

MCB: Finally, what are five albums you can listen to from start to finish at any point?

JO: Live at Cook County Jail by B.B. King
Furnace Room Lullabye by Neko Case
Oh Mercy by Bob Dylan
Nina at Newport by Nina Simone
Astral Weeks by Van Morrison

Joan Osborne plays Alys Stephens Center on Thursday, November 13th, with Lisa Loeb. For more information, visit the venue’s website.

Chris K. Davidson is a writer and musician in Birmingham.