THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 11, 1995 TAG: 9510110085
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
THE MORE PEOPLE Joan Osborne talks to, the less time she has to spend with them.
She's meeting more and more interviewers as her debut album, ``Relish,'' gains an audience. A day last week found her speaking with seemingly anyone and everyone who might be interested in her work.
``I can't remember what I've been telling people,'' the New York-based singer said in a telephone interview. ``I've been working really hard. We've sold over 100,000 copies now, and even that amazes me.''
Osborne, whose debut is undergoing a surge of popularity thanks to the single ``One of Us,'' will appear Thursday night at ``Hopestock,'' a benefit for Hope House Foundation at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk.
Osborne has been praised for mixing her blues influences - she began her career singing R&B covers in New York clubs - with other, more atmospheric and offbeat sounds. On ``Relish,'' the result is much less slavish than much current blues-informed music.
``When I get into something, I like to study the music,'' she said. ``I try to dig back to who the roots are. When I got into the blues, I found all these gospel roots, and ancient gospel hillbilly things. And I'm into Middle Eastern music.
``The melody in `Pensacola' is kind of a Middle Eastern hillbilly thing.''
Osborne also draws sustenance from the likes of Captain Beefheart, whose former guitarist Gary Lucas performs on the tune ``Spider Web,'' which he co-wrote. Osborne notes that her friend Chris Butler, who headed the great '80s New Wave outfit
the Waitresses, turned her on to Beefheart, perhaps the most intriguing of all rock artists to twist the blues into his own shapes.
``It's blues,'' Osborne noted, ``but he filters it through this very other-worldly thing. But it still rocks like the blues.''
Osborne has little patience with blues musicians and scholars who think the music should never be tampered with. More important to her is to use it as a jumping-off point for her point of view.
``The blues is hardy enough to survive. There's a school of people who are dedicated to re-creating what's already happened, and that's not what I'm interested in doing.''
She also speaks highly of a wide range of '90s women artists such as PJ Harvey, Courtney Love, Liz Phair and Bjork. She's glad, too, that the trendy ``women in rock'' magazine stories of years past have started to subside.
``Isn't that amazing?'' she said. ``Isn't that refreshing? Finally there are all these women making their statements and they're not treating it as an aberration. People are treating it as a normal thing.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Joan Osborne
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MUSIC by CNB