Anthology

Joan Osborne is best known for her 1995 smash “One Of Us,” which earned her Grammy nominations for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year.

Since then, she has had several critically-acclaimed albums in the blues and singer-songwriter genres and has performed with artists like Phil Lesh, Cheap Trick and the Funk Brothers, the legendary group of musicians who provided the backing tracks for most of the great Motown hits of the 1960s. She even did a duet with Isaac Hayes on the Schoolhouse Rock classic, “I’m Just A Bill” and toured with Lilith Fair in 1997.

Osborne didn’t start out as a singer. She actually attended New York University to study film, but switched careers after jamming on Billie Holiday’s “God Bless The Child” at an open-mic night in the Big Apple. Since then, she has proven adept at soul, jazz, blues and folk.

Osborne’s latest album is titled “Bring It On Home”, a collection of vintage blues, R&B and soul songs that make up the seventh album from the Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum artist. It’s an apt title-for Osborne, Home marks a return to her musical roots. “I cut my teeth in New York blues clubs singing songs like this,” she remembers. “I’d do three or four one-hour sets per night. That’s where I really learned to sing.”
Despite her long history with the music, it was only recently that the singer felt like she was ready to put some of those standards on record. “There’s a texture and richness to these songs that singers don’t have right away, that I didn’t have when I started out,” she says. “But the more I’ve done this, the more tone and depth I’ve developed. This was the time.”