ENTERTAINMENT
September 4, 1997 | HEIDI SIEGMUND CUDA
While most of us working stiffs were trying to wrap things up before the holiday weekend, Michael Keaton was hanging out at the Viper Room last week, waiting for his cue to announce the next performer. The artist was Joan Osborne, who performed a show so secret only a handful of fans were there, and apparently they witnessed a terrific show by the young singer.
ENTERTAINMENT
November 3, 1996 | Steve Hochman
Before anthropomorphizing God and becoming a pop sensation, Osborne was a big-voiced but otherwise average blues-based bar-band singer, as documented in this collection of live tracks previously released through her indie label. No clues here in the songwriting (adequate), arrangements (unimaginative) or even singing (both Joplin and Raitt fixations) of the stardom to come. Inessential, except for fanatics. * Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (excellent).
ENTERTAINMENT
June 29, 1996
I must take exception to Robert Hilburn's review ("The Comfort Zone," June 8) of the Joan Osborne concert. I saw her show the following night and couldn't disagree more with his lukewarm assessment of her performance. Admittedly, because Osborne doesn't yet have a lot of original material, she had to pad her set, and I thought that a couple of songs she chose didn't suit her well. But to equate Joan Osborne with the no-talent Sheryl Crow is absurd. The six people in my party were wowed by Joan Osborne, and we know generic Hootie pop when we see it. Joan Osborne, "uninspiring"?
ENTERTAINMENT
June 15, 1996
Robert Hilburn needs to learn an important distinction about popular music: Some performers are artists, some are entertainers and a select few are both. In his reviews of two recent concerts, he took the Mavericks ("A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Oldies Revue," June 3) and Joan Osborne ("The Comfort Zone: Joan Osborne Echoes the Greats but Doesn't Make Her Own Statement," June 8), two decidedly retro acts, to task for not being groundbreaking enough. This is akin to wondering why Wynton Marsalis doesn't do a rap record.
ENTERTAINMENT
June 8, 1996 | ROBERT HILBURN, TIMES POP MUSIC CRITIC
Despite her delightful hit single and all those Grammy nominations, Joan Osborne really is just one of us. Like 99% of the enthusiastic fans who saw her in concert Thursday at the Wiltern Theatre, the New York-based singer-songwriter's vision of pop music is fairly much patched together from the works of artists she admires. Over the course of her 90-minute set, she displayed echoes of the full-tilt boogie of Janis Joplin, the R&B sass of Etta James and the blues-pop snap of Bonnie Raitt.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 10, 1996
Joan Osborne went home empty-handed from the Grammy Awards show, but her five nominations sparked sales of her "Relish" album. It has has moved into the national Top 10 for the first time and is No. 3 on The Times' Southern California album chart.