Thursday, April 12, 2012

CD Review: “Bring It On Home” by Joan Osborne

BringItOnHome_cvr_sm

Bring It On Home

Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show told us that you are nobody until you get your picture on the cover of The Rolling Stone. Joan Osborne cut her first major label album in 1991. In ‘96 she had her first big hit with “One Of Us” off of her album Relish and got her picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone. The song reached number 4 in the U.S., number 2 on the U.S. pop charts and number 1 in Canada and Australia. The album made the top 10. She went on to have two other hits with "Right Hand Man" and "St. Teresa". After the pop success she’d appeared on Austin City Limits,and she was featured in the 2002 documentary film, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and toured with Motown sidemen the Funk Brothers. Osborne and the band did a national tour with The Dixie Chicks then in 2005 she lent her bluesy voice to The Dead and performed on numerous occasions with Phil Lesh and Friends.

Joan Osborne “Shake Your Hips”
Bring It On Home
is Osborne's first album of hand-picked vintage blues
and soul songs, a collection that fans always request in concerts.The recording sessions were HOT!, as the singer/songwriter channeled her lifelong love
of blues and R&B and turned loose her voice, her body and her soul on these classics and made them her own. Osborne's vocal style and artistic taste were such a natural fit for the songs that she recalls an impromptu jam which turned into the album's lead
track, "Shake Your Hips" by Slim Harpo.

Not since last year when I first heard English sensation, that’s right, Adele, have I been so impressed with a performance. That’s Jack Petruzzelli on that signature guitar lick. The rest of her band, on the album and on tour are Aaron Comess: Drums and Percussion
 Richard Hammond: Bass
 Keith Cotton: Keyboards and 
Andrew Carillo: Guitar
. Guests include Barbecue Bob Pomeroy (harmonica), Allen Toussaint (piano on his own "Shoorah! Shoorah!") and vocalists the Holmes Brothers and Rufus Thomas' daughter, Vaneese Thomas. Jimmy Vivino, Conan O'Brien Show Band musical director, assembled all horn arrangements and also played electric piano on "I Don't Need no Doctor."

“I Don’t Need No Doctor” Joan Osborne
“For the Ray Charles track (“I Don’t Need No Doctor”), the arrangement was already there; we didn’t change a lot, but we just tried to bring a new energy and commitment to it.” says Osborne. “The key is, what can do you that’s different but just as satisfying?”

The answer involved mixing a little bit of the old and the new. Osborne tackled vintage songs by Ike and Tina Turner, Sonny Boy Williamson, Ray Charles, Muddy Waters and Al Green (among others), treating them with respect while giving them some interesting twists in tempo, key and feeling.

joan_osborne Rolling Stone

Joan Osborne has sold millions of albums and garnered multiple Grammy nominations throughout her critically and commercially acclaimed career. Besides Bring It on Home and its accompanying spring tour, Osborne is keeping incredibly busy, working on her “stone rocking” side project Trigger Hippy (featuring Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman, ex-Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed, singer/songwriter Jackie Greene and bassist Nick Govrik), finishing up an album of her own original music, and playing some intimate gigs with band mate Keith Cotton.

She’ll be touring through September in support of the album, check her web site for dates and if you get a chance to catch her live, don’t miss it.

 

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Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

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