Joan Osborne

Originally from Anchorage, Kentucky, a suburb of Louisville, Osborne moved to New York City in the late 1980s to study filmmaking at New York University, where she had classes with legendary documentarian George Stoney, among others. Osborne was paying her own way through college and taking time off to earn money for another semester when, by chance, she sang at an open mic night at the Abilene Café. The other musicians encouraged her to return, and she began singing weekly at the Abilene’s open mic and at other blues open mics in NYC’s East Village. She soon became immersed in NYC’s live music scene, forming her own band and playing in nightclubs alongside groups like the Sweetones, Surreal McCoys, Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, and the Holmes Brothers, and artists like Chris Whitley, Frankie Paris, and Jeff Buckley.

In 1991, she formed her own record label, Womanly Hips, to release her first full-length album, Soul Show: Live at Delta 88, and she began to tour around the Northeast, building a devoted regional following. She signed a recording contract with Rick Chertoff of Mercury Records, and released her second (and first major label) album Relish (1995), which became a hit on the strength of the single “One of Us”. “Right Hand Man” and “St. Teresa” were minor hits, and “Spider Web” also received radio play. Osborne wrote and directed the second music video for “St. Teresa”.