Joan Osborne happy being just 'one of us' again

With a voice bestowed by angels and a dose of the devil’s fire, singer Joan Osborne leapt into America’s pop consciousness in 1995 with her riveting hit song “One of Us.”

That song, along with “St. Teresa” and “Spider Web,” propelled Osborne’s major-label debut, “Relish,” to sales figures above 3 million — a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it gave Osborne a devoted audience that remains with her to this day, a curse because expectations ran so high after her soaring debut.

Osborne hasn’t repeated the commercial success of “Relish” on subsequent albums that explored musical terrain from blues to bluegrass to Motown.

She appears, backed by the Holmes Brothers, at Petaluma’s Mystic Theater on Monday. Paul Thorn opens the show.

“This tour will be unique because the Holmes Brothers will be my backing band,” Osborne said. “It will be me and my songs but filtered through the lens of the very raw, bluesy sound” of the Holmes Brothers.

Her latest album, “Little Wild One,” reunites Osborne with Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman, the members of the Hooters with whom she collaborated on “Relish.” Remarkably, it’s the first time the trio, along with producer Rick Chertoff, have worked together since their mid-’90s success.

The magic remains. From the first song, “Hallelujah in the City,” which Osborne calls “a riff on the idea of the city as a spiritual place,” the sounds of mandola and Hammond organ evoke the soundscape of “Relish.”

The next song, “Sweeter than the Rest,” was inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Osborne said she “kept going back to Whitman for inspiration for the record.”

She grew up in a small suburb of Louisville, Ky., and moved to New York in the late 1980s. Osborne, 47, lives in Brooklyn with her daughter, who will be 5 in December. Having a child led her to greater emotional depth, which she brought into her songwriting and singing.

“I always felt I was someone who had easy access to my emotions, but I found that there was this whole deeper level,” she said. “I was sort of functioning on the first two floors and didn’t even realize there was a basement and a sub-basement.

“Sometimes I find myself onstage starting to choke up in the middle of songs because I am connecting the meaning of the song to my daughter,” Osborne added. “So I have to force myself to stop thinking about her to get on an even keel.”

So where has Osborne’s road led after her mid-’90s smash? She released several albums and appeared in the 2002 film “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” with the Funk Brothers, and toured with them.

She opened for the Dixie Chicks and took a lot of heat from fundamentalist groups for her line, “What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home.”

Some Christians “did not like me, and they were not shy about telling me. I got very threatening letters,” says the ardently pro-choice singer who joined the Lilith tour in 1997. “But you can’t live your life trying to please everybody and not speaking out about your views.”

In this decade, Osborne has appeared as a vocalist with Phil Lesh and other surviving members of the Grateful Dead. As a songwriter, Osborne says her time among the Dead “really expanded my abilities. I turned around and wrote a lot of songs for the ‘Pretty Little Stranger’ record, which has a real Americana flavor informed by having to learn all that stuff back in 2003.”

With the release of last year’s “Little Wild One,” Osborne is at the peak of her powers. The fire still burns, yet it’s tempered by subtlety, and her voice is as beguiling and alluring as ever.

The new disc hasn’t matched sales of “Relish,” but Osborne doesn’t mind; she feels relieved the spotlight has dimmed.

“I am kind of lucky to not have those expectations on me anymore,” she said. “I have this whole audience who has stayed with me, an avid concert-going, record-buying audience. Not millions of people, but big enough that I can do the kind of records I’m really excited about doing, I can work with the people that I want to work with, and still have a career.”

In sum, she relishes her life. “It’s kind of the best of both worlds. I don’t have huge commercial pressures, so I have a certain amount of creative freedom, but at the same time, I don’t need a day job. So it’s a really great spot to be in.”

Michael Shapiro is a travel and entertainment writer. He can be reached at michaelshapiro@yahoo.com.