Joan Osborne
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Producing a worthy follow-up to Relish proved to be a time-consuming challenge for Osborne. Mercury tried to buy some time by issuing a compilation release, Early Recordings (which collected the early releases Live at Delta 88 and Blue Million Miles). In the meantime, Osborne focused on supporting a few groups/causes she felt strongly about, such as Rock the Vote and Planned Parenthood (eventually being named an honorary member of Planned Parenthoods Board of Advocates), in addition to covering Im Just a Bill as a duet with Isaac Hayes on the 1998 Schoolhouse Rocks the Vote! benefit album. She also studied briefly with late Qawwali master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and performed alongside such notables as Stevie Wonder, Melissa Etheridge, Taj Mahal, Luciano Pavarotti, Spearhead, Bob Dylan, and the Chieftains. September 2000 finally saw the release of Osbornes next all-new studio album, titled Righteous Love, which failed to match its predecessors commercial success and sunk from sight shortly after release. She bounced back in 2002 with How Sweet It Is, a collection of covers that leaned heavily on classic soul and R&B tunes from the 1960s and 70s. A career retrospective, One of Us, followed in 2005. Vanguard picked her up shortly after this, and Osborne released her first full-length on that label, a country-tinged effort called Pretty Little Stranger, in 2006.
