Joan Osborne might actually be the hardest working woman in rock & roll. Having just wrapped a tour with Motown's legendary house band the Funk Brothers, the singer is now out opening for the Dixie Chicks and gearing up to perform with the Dead.
"I got these great offers, and I couldn't say no to any of them," says Osborne. Her current gig with the Chicks concludes on June 14th, and her dates singing with the reconstituted Dead -- formerly the Other Ones -- on their Summer Getaway Tour follow start the next day and run through August 10th.
"People like that social aspect of listening to the band," Osborne says of the road legends. "You're not just fan of the music, you are part of this community of people who are interested in seeing them in all different ways and collecting tapes, part of an underground network of fans."
To prepare her for four-hour sets and the improvisational jam sessions, the band sent her a box of CDs and lyrics. But Osborne embraces the challenge: "I always thought that one of the great things about seeing a live performer was that you could be spontaneous and anything could happen at any moment."
Nor is she worried about the possibility of protesters on the Dixie Chicks' outing. "Nobody has said boo to me about it," says Osborne about the uproar over singer Natalie Maines' anti-George W. Bush remarks. "She has a right to say what she wants to say, and if people don't like it, they have a right to react. That's just part of healthy American dialogue and disagreement."
Osborne herself experienced a brief bout of backlash following the release of her 1995 chart-topping "One of Us," when protestors crowded the entrances to her shows and decried the song as "blasphemous."
Osborne, whose latest album How Sweet It Is is an ambitious collection of covers of classics made famous by artists such as Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix and the Spinners, insists she's a still first and foremost a singer-songwriter who just happens to be taking time to enjoy other people's songs. "I've always enjoyed interpreting, the way a jazz singer might," she says. "I love the challenge of bringing something to a song that hasn't already been discovered by the artist who wrote or originally recorded it."
The Dead/Joan Osborne tour dates:
6/15: Manchester, TN, Bonnaroo Music Festival
6/17: Virginia Beach, VA, Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
6/18: Columbia, MD, Merriweather Post Pavillion
6/20: Saratoga Springs, NY, SPAC
6/21: Hartford, CT, The Meadows
6/22: Mansfield, MA, Great Woods
6/24-25: Holmdel, NJ, PNC Bank Arts Center
6/27-28: Camden, NJ, Tweeter Waterfront
6/29: Vernon, NY Vernon Downs Raceway
7/1: Milwaukee, Summerfest
7/2: St. Louis, UMB Bank Pavilion
7/4: Austin, TX, Willie Nelson's Picnic
7/6-8: Denver, CO, Red Rocks Amphitheater
7/29: Sunrise, Office Depot Center
7/30: Tampa, St. Pete Times Forum
7/31: Atlanta, Hi Fi Buys Amphitheater
8/2: Chicago/Joliet, IL, Route 66 Raceway
8/3: Somerset, WI, Float Rite Amphitheater
8/5: Indianapolis, IN, Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
8/6: Columbus, OH, Polaris Amphitheater
8/8: Darien Center, NY, Darien Lakes PAC
8/9-10: Calverton, LI, Enterprise Park/Bonnaroo II
KERRY L. SMITH
(May 16, 2003)
