Joan Osborne - Pretty Little Stranger

The Sound Cellar is very pleased to present Joan Osborne as January's featured artist. And, Pretty Little Stranger, her excellent new album on Vanguard Records, is January's featured album. Listen for cuts from Pretty Little Stranger and Joan Osborne's back catalog all month on The Sound Cellar.

Recorded in Nashville and produced by Grammy winner, Steve Buckingham, Pretty Little Stranger highlights the soulful sound of Joan Osborne with elements of country blues and Americana. This 12 song collection features six original tunes written by Joan including the first single, "Who Divided", "Shake That Devil", "After Jane" and the title track and also compositions by Kris Kristofferson ("Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends"), Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter ("Brokedown Palace") and Patty Griffin ("What You Are").

I think of this as my version of a country record, explains Osborne, who admits that, although born and raised in Kentucky, she never really explored the genre until she relocated to New York in the early 80s. Im thinking about this album almost as if a film director decided to make a genre films -- a western, then a romantic comedy, then a detective film. Its a little like taking these genres that have certain constraints built in, then putting your own sensibility into it.

Osbornes sensibility -- a restlessness of spirit and an unfettered purity of emotion -- is evident in every nook and cranny of Pretty Little Stranger - her first album of original material in six years. Yes, shes abetted by an impressive list of collaborators and fellow travelers, both in terms of performing (Vince Gill, for instance, provides poignant vocal counterpoint on the hushed Time Wont Tell) and writing (like Patty Griffin, the source of the questing What You Are). But in the end, Osbornes personality and voice are the fuel that helps the album motor so effortlessly down the blue highway shes decided to set out on.

In making this album, I learned how difficult it is to be simple, says the singer, who wrote much of Pretty Little Stranger in the basement of the Brooklyn home she shares with her infant daughter before heading to Nashville to record with Grammy-winning producer Steve Buckingham (Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Loretta Lynn). One of the things that I wanted to focus on when I was writing songs for this record, and choosing material to cover, was that a lot of country music is lyrically very direct and very simple. A lot of what Ive written in the past has been more flowery, more abstract. I got a new appreciation for how hard it is to be simple and not be trite.

They are by and large really personal songs -- things that have come out of my life and my romantic landscape, she explains. Its kind of liberating to be able to let that stuff go out into the world. Its more honest and more interesting way to do it rather than just make up something that couldve happened to anyone. I wanted to delve into my own experiences with heartache and cheating and all those things that go into good country songs. To me, it was okay to do that at this point in my life. I dont feel I have to be guarded about it anymore.

Pretty Little Stranger features some of music's finest performers lending their talents including Vince Gill on "Time Won't Tell," Alison Krauss, "Holy Waters", Sonny Landreth (one of The Sound Cellar's favorite artists) playing slide guitar on "Dead Roses" and Rodney Crowell providing harmony vocals on his own "When The Blue Hour Comes."

Joan Osborne had one of the biggest releases of the mid-90's with "Relish" and participated in the historic and successful Lilith Fair Tour. She has worked with a myriad of artists like Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, The Chieftains and Bonnie Raitt. She toured with The Dead in the summer of 2004 and recently finished a tour with Phil Lesh & Friends.