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In her triumphant return to the
Park West, Joan Osborne commanded an instant presence with
her gritty yet polished R&B stance, her warm, friendly, unassuming manner;
and her party-girl-next-door good looks. Comfortable and snappy in a
black t-shirt, crisp black bell-bottoms and platform soles, she was
clearly ready to wrap her arms and soul around the music and of course, to
dance.
A transplant to New York City
by way of Kentucky, Osborne featured most of the tunes from her
outstanding new album, How Sweet It Is, an homage to songs
of another period of turmoil in American history, inspired by the tragic
events of September 11th. In addition, she dished up plenty of old
favorites.
After opening act (and backing
musician and vocalist) Cissy Siero, from Austin Texas, got
the crowd moving with an all-acoustic set of folk-rock, Osborne opened her
own set with a spare, soulful version of Why Can't We Live Together
from the new disc. Punctuated by New Orleans legend
Ivan Neville's syncopated jabs on the Hammond organ, her sinuous
voice lovingly wound around each and every note. Her approach to the
lyric was sexy, sultry and plaintive at the same time.
Smiling Faces,
also from the new album, was a funky turn on the old standard. After
promising tunes from her past albums in addition to the new, she
immediately broke into a stirring version of St. Theresa,
the startling opening track from her major label debut Relish.
She broadly and smoothly rebuilt the song, piece by piece to a
devastating crescendo, and pleaded, "Is there something you forgot to tell
me --- tell me -- tell me???" It gave me chills, and the
audience was hypnotized - with most in the crowd having risen to their
feet long before.
With Think, the
Ted White/Aretha Franklin classic, she suddenly became owner of the
definitive version - further trumping her attack on the song from the new
album. And anyone who wasn't dancing by this point was clearly in
the minority! Cooling it down a bit for Robbie Robertson's The
Weight, she clearly showed the depth and breadth of her incredible
range.
The sweet, sad, ominous lyric
of Stevie Wonder's Love's In Need Of Love Today was
especially poignant in light of the recent tragedies, and when a young
woman in the audience pleaded repeatedly for Pensacola
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(from Relish), Osborne
cheerfully obliged, stating that it was time to "...deviate from the set
list". And it wasn't just a throw together version, either, but a
full guns-out attack on her swampy, hard core blues original: the
story of a young woman finding her long-lost father in "...a trailer in
the sand." Clearly, the band was well rehearsed and ready to respond
to a quick change in plans! In addition to Siero and Neville, the
lineup of musicians included Traci Hornworth on bass, Andrew Carillo on
guitar and Tony Mason on drums.
Next, her version of I'll
Be Around was sweet and smooth as Kentucky bourbon, and her take
on her own breakout hit One Of Us was as crisp and bright as
the lyric itself.
Other tunes included a
rollicking version of Dave Mason's Only You Know And I Know,
and a jazzy take on War which was dramatically slowed down
from shout and stomp of the original. Again poignant in light of
recent history, she asks, "Peace, love and understanding --- tell me is
there no place for them today?"
She wrapped the set with
Everybody Is A Star sandwiched between two songs from Relish,
the epic hard-rockin' blues dream-sequence of Spiderweb and
The Ladder. With enthusiastic audience participation
and frenzied dancing in all corners of the hall, she had clearly succeeded
in her mission.
Her only entry from
Righteous Love (2000) was the encore, To Make You Feel My
Love. I missed hearing more from that album, a unique blend
of Rock and R&B and the follow-up to Relish, but nonetheless it was a
sweet closing to a perfect evening. Joan Osborne is unique in every
way, and any effort to pigeonhole her music can only be met with failure.
As a singer and a songwriter, and now as an interpreter of the songs of
others, she is as diverse as the range of human emotion. The
audience was clearly moved by her performance, and surely stepped
out into the warm October night with a new perspective on peace and love.
Joan Osborne - Official Compendia Site
Posted 10/21/02
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