Joan Osborne talked with The Morning Show’s Jill Riley about her upcoming October shows at The Dakota Jazz Club, and her most recent album Dylanology (Live), a collection of live, soulful renditions of Bob Dylan songs.

Use the audio player above to listen to the interview, and find a full transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current, I'm Jill Riley. Well, this year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Joan Osborne's worldwide hit song "One of Us" from her debut album, Relish. Well, this Grammy-nominated artist has released, something about like a dozen albums in her three decades long career. She's shared the stage with the Lilith Fair generation, hello, and with artists ranging from Stevie Wonder, Mavis Staples, Lucinda Williams, The Funk Brothers, as in Motown’s The Funk Brothers, members of The Grateful Dead, and even going on tour, opening, I believe, for Bob Dylan. And, on the subject of Bob Dylan, one of Minnesota's favorite musical topics of conversation, in 2017 Joan Osborne released the critically acclaimed album, Songs of Bob Dylan, and she'll be performing in Minneapolis for two nights. So that's October 3 and 4 at The Dakota and she'll be singing the songs of Bob Dylan in support of her latest album, Dylanology (Live), which just came out this spring. Joan Osborne is on The Current's Morning Show. Joan, it's so nice to meet you. Thank you for being on.

Joan Osborne: Well, it's lovely to meet you, too, Jill, thanks for having me on. That was quite an intro.

Jill Riley: Well, you know what? We're giving you your due, you know? And Joan, what's fascinating is, over three decades, you've been the kind of artist that you can't put in a box, like a genre box. What inspired you first to cover Bob Dylan and not just cover, but I think the word interpret would be good to use.

Joan Osborne: Yeah, I think that's a good word. And in fact, that was sort of my North Star in making the Bob Dylan studio record, and also the live record: how do we interpret these songs so that we're not just copying what someone has already done with them? But where is the place where my voice can intersect with the song and allow it to blossom in a way that that it really hasn't before? So, it's kind of like being a jazz singer. You take on these American Standards tunes and try to bring your own personality to them. So, it's very similar to that. The inspiration to do an entire record of Bob Dylan songs really came to me from listening to Ella Fitzgerald, because she has a whole series of records which she put out in the 1950s and 60s. I think it's now called The Songbook Series. And on each album, she chose a different songwriter, whether it was Count Basie, whether it was Lerner and Loewe, any of these classic American Standards songwriters, and devoted an entire record to their songs. So I thought that's such a cool idea. Why don't I try doing something similar with some more contemporary songwriters? And we had a chance to do a residency at a club in New York City, and we did a two week residency there, and did nothing but Bob Dylan songs the whole two weeks. And that was really the seed of this Songs of Bob Dylan record out in 2017.

Jill Riley: So when you were able to do that residency, and then you decide, okay, we're gonna make a record of Dylan covers. How did you choose?

Joan Osborne: Yeah, well, that's the double-edged sword, isn't it? Because on the one hand, there's so much amazing material. There is no like, filler or anything like that. But then, on the other hand, how do you decide what to do? You know, for me, it was just taking it one step at a time. There were songs that I knew of that I felt drawn to and wanted to try and just sort of knew that right away. And then there were other songs that people suggested to me. And then we also wanted to do different songs from all the different moments in Dylan's career, not just concentrate on like the 60s era or the 70s era or whatever, but try to pick things from all throughout his career, because he's continued to make really interesting records up to the present day. So that was also part of our guiding principle. And you know, we tried a bunch of different things. Sometimes we try four or five ways of doing a song, and it didn't work. So you put that one aside and pull something else out of the pile.

Jill Riley: What are some of your favorites?

Joan Osborne: There's more than one, for sure. I am a particular fan of a record that he put out in the early 1980s called Oh Mercy, and I actually covered a song called "Man in the Long Black Coat" off of Oh Mercy for the Relish album. And I think that's probably what brought me to the attention of either Dylan himself or his people, and that's when I was invited to work with him, and, in fact, I got to sing a duet with him, and we were on the same microphone in the studio, so my face was literally inches away from Bob Dylan's face.

Jill Riley: Wow.

Joan Osborne: Yeah. So that was pretty cool. It was intimidating, but it was cool. So I guess I have a soft spot for the whole Oh Mercy album, and for that song "Man in the Long Black Coat." There's another really beautiful song on that record called "Shooting Star," and we've been doing that in the live show. It's not on any of the recordings, but I do try to sprinkle in some live only, I guess, bonus tracks for the people who come to see us in concert. And so there's certain things that they can hear that no one else will be able to hear, and that's one of the songs that we've been doing. It’s a beautiful song called “Shooting Star” from that same record.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Joan Osborne on The Current. She's performing in Minneapolis for two nights, October 3 and 4 at The Dakota. She's going to be singing the songs of Bob Dylan. The latest album is Dylanology (Live) that just came out in springtime. So tell me about the live album. 

Joan Osborne: I really wanted to open it up and make something that was more fun and more of a party. So we did invite some amazing special guests. We have Robert Randolph, who is on the album, Jackie Greene, who's on the album, Amy Helm, who is on the album, and an incredible live band, which they're musicians that I've been working with for many, many years. Just this incredibly talented group of people. And we just threw a party every night. I wanted to branch out beyond just the songs that are on the Songs of Bob Dylan studio record. And I wanted the special guests to be able to come in and bring something that they were excited to do. So the song list is a little bit different than the record from 2017. With an artist like Bob Dylan, as we've said, there's just so much great material, you can't run out of things to try and to play around with.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Joan Osborne on The Current's Morning Show, and we're talking a whole lot about Bob Dylan as Joan Osborne has a new record, Dylanology (Live), and she is bringing that live show, performing the songs of Bob Dylan two nights at the Dakota October, 3 and 4. Joan, you talked about covering Bob Dylan on the debut album, and then, you kind of came to his attention. You eventually recorded a duet to be in the studio. Have you heard anything from Bob Dylan? I don't know if you get feedback, or you get the thumbs up, or did you hear any kind of reaction?

Joan Osborne: Well, you know, not a lot. But yes, when we put out this Songs of Bob Dylan record in 2017, he or his people made mention of it on their website, and I think it's still there. I think it's still in the archives of the website of him saying this is a really good new record and go check it out, or something like that. So that was pretty meaningful to me. There's plenty of people who make records of Bob Dylan covers, but I don't see him reaching out or making a comment on it very frequently, so I felt kind of special about that.

Jill Riley: Yeah, as you should.

Joan Osborne: I've only spoken to him a handful of times. When I was working with The [Grateful] Dead back in 2003 and did a whole tour with them, he was one of the co-headliners for a big part of the tour. So we were in close quarters and worked together a little bit during that tour. But it's not like I'm his best buddy, and I'm going to call him up and say, "Hey, Bob, what's going on?"

Jill Riley: Yeah, “what do you think of this?”

Joan Osborne: He's, of necessity I'm sure, a fairly reclusive person, and I would be too if I were in his situation. So, it's not like I've gotten a ton of feedback, but just a small amount, and that was meaningful to me.

Jill Riley: Yeah, it sounds like you got the nod. I think that says a lot. Joan Osborne is on The Current's Morning Show. Before we let you go, I've been reflecting a little bit on the Lilith Fair era. There's a whole documentary about Lilith Fair, and with Sarah McLachlan having a new record as well, I wonder if you could if talk about that period of time and what it was like to be part of that movement?

Joan Osborne: Yeah, well, actually, I went to the premiere of the documentary and got to see Sarah again, and got to see Paula Cole and, you know, meet some people that I hadn't seen or hung out with in a long time and saw the film. And, yeah, I think in certain ways, the music business has really evolved. And you know, you don't necessarily have a situation where if a station has just played a song from a female artist, they feel like they can't play another song right next to it, because, oh no, that's going to turn off listeners. I think that mindset has really shifted. And you see people like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga and Beyoncé being the biggest pop stars around. I think that that that mindset has shifted. But, the world that we are living in now, certain things that we were taking a stand on, in particular, supporting Planned Parenthood, those things have regressed, so there is still work to be done in that world. And there is a moment in the film where that is talked about. I was pretty grateful that they were able to put that in the film and bring that up and have that be part of the discussion.

Jill Riley: Joan Osborne with us on The Current's Morning Show. You can check out Joan Osborne's show October 3 and 4 at The Dakota in Minneapolis. Joan Osborne will be singing the songs of Bob Dylan in support of her latest live album, Dylanology (Live). Joan, I appreciate you taking the time to check in with The Current's Morning Show.

Joan Osborne: It's my pleasure to be here. I did just want to mention that I am certainly singing a lot of the songs of Bob Dylan for that show, but I also will be doing some of my own material too.

Jill Riley: Okay, this is very good to know. Thank you.

Joan Osborne: We did some all Bob Dylan shows, and the audience liked it, but then we got some feedback of, can't you do a little bit of Joan Osborne material? So it's going to be a nice mix.

Jill Riley: Very nice. You give the people what they want. All right, Joan, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for checking in.

 Joan Osborne: You're so welcome. Thanks, Jill.

 Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current

Credits

Guest – Joan Osborne
Host – Jill Riley
Producers – Nilufer Arsala
Digital Producer — Natalia Toledo

External Links

Joan Osborne Official Website - https://joanosborne.com/