-
Osborne reclaims Dylan
SARATOGA SPRINGS – Joan Osborne never set out to revisit Bob Dylan
with a second album.
The impetus for “Dylanology Live” came unexpectedly—she discovered recordings from
2018 tour that she had either forgotten about or hadn’t realized had been captured. Upon listening, she found the performances carried an energy and character worth sharing.
“I thought, wow, this is really cool. I want this out in
the world,” she said over the phone, laboring through a head cold. Through the distance, the “One of Us” artist shared her deep appreciation for that Bard of Greenwich Village. She’s set to perform those songs at Universal Preservation Hall on Thursday, April 10.
The live album isn’t a follow-up in the traditional sense to her 2017 studio release “Songs of Bob Dylan,” but rather a standalone project born from revisiting those recordings and recognizing their merit. The decision to tour with this material again—and to release it as an album—was a response to what she heard in those live tapes, not part of a planned Dylan-centric series.
By appearances, Osborne is Dylan-centric. A second album and a subsequent tour lend to that impression. She admits his vast catalog could fuel several more albums, should she wish. With more than 39 studio albums and countless live performances, Dylan’s work continues to be analyzed, covered, and revered across generations.
Osborne has spent more than three decades touring, recording and interpreting songs—her own and others—with a kind of precision that doesn’t come from training alone. It comes from care. Her vocal regimen isn’t glamorous, just consistent: she exercises regularly, stays hydrated, pays attention to her diet and surrounds herself with a band who shares those priorities. On the road, those details matter.
Lately, she’s added something new to that routine. “I’ve been really getting into doing saunas lately,” she said—not as a tip or trend, but more as a quiet realization. It works for her, in this moment. It helps.
Osborne is no stranger to finding new ways to channel her creativity. When the pandemic shut down live music, she turned to watercolor painting as a way to stay engaged. She approached it without pretense—no formal training, no goal beyond the experience. What drew her in wasn’t the product but the process. It was, for her, a way to represent what singing feels like—nonverbal, physical, instinctive. Unlike performing, there was no audience, no feedback loop—just time and texture.
She began experimenting with ink and color, sometimes using a material called watercolor ground to paint on surfaces like tree branches, old record sleeves, even sculptural objects.
“I’m just doing it for myself and whoever else might like it,” she said. That mindset—curious, unpressured, exploratory—echoes in the way she approaches music, too.
Osborne has long been known for her ability to interpret other people’s songs without merely covering them. She’s a songwriter in her own right, but not one who limits herself to her own work. The songs she selects are ones she connects with instinctively. She allows them to live in her voice, shaped by her experience and sense of rhythm. It’s never about replication. She doesn’t paint by the numbers.
It’s this instinctive connection that brought her back to Dylan.
“Songs of Bob Dylan” had already showcased her deep understanding of his work. At the time, she wasn’t planning to return to his catalog—at least not for another recording. But while going through her archives recently, she discovered live recordings from a 2018 tour that had been stored and nearly forgotten.
Listening back, she heard something worth sharing—not just the songs but the immediacy of performance, the unfiltered energy of the band, and the ways those songs had stretched and shifted in a live setting.
“There’s an additional layer of energy and excitement and risk, and spontaneity that gets added when you are in front of an audience,” she said. “It may not be as pristine as what you’re trying to go for in the studio, but in exchange for that and for maybe being a little rough around the edges, you get all of this energy and this excitement.”
The performances captured on the album feature Osborne’s touring band along with guests like Jackie Greene, Amy Helm, and Robert Randolph. The arrangements don’t stray far from Dylan’s originals, but they don’t sit still either. “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” swings with bluesy swagger, while “Highway 61 Revisited” takes on a darker, slower burn. Osborne doesn’t rewrite the songs—she lets them breathe differently.
Her connection to Dylan goes beyond admiration. She sees his influence as foundational—not just to her, but to American music more broadly. Dylan, she says, changed the rules. Before him, there was a clear division between songwriters and singers. Dylan, following in the footsteps of artists like Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams, blurred that line in a way that stuck. He set a new standard for what it meant to be an artist who could write and perform with equal depth.
Even now, she continues to study his writing. In preparing for the upcoming shows, she found herself revisiting songs she knew well, only to discover new layers in them. That, she believes, is part of his lasting power. She pointed to “I Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” from his recent album “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” as an example—proof that he’s still evolving, still capable of writing something beautiful and unguarded.
And yet, for all her poise as a performer, Dylan’s love songs still catch her off guard. She recalled singing “To Make You Feel My Love” at a family wedding, only to find herself overcome halfway through. It’s not stage fright. It’s the writing—its clarity, its vulnerability—that makes it difficult to get through.
Osborne compares Dylan’s staying power to that of Shakespeare. Like the playwright’s canon, his songs are likely to be performed long after he’s gone. They’ll shift in tone and meaning with every new interpreter, every new voice. They already have.
The Saratoga Springs show won’t be a replica of the album, and it won’t be strictly Dylan either. Osborne plans to weave in some of her own material—songs that fans expect and songs she still feels connected to. And later this year, she’ll begin work on a new project with jazz bassist Christian McBride to re-record songs from “Relish” for its 30th anniversary. The idea isn’t nostalgia. It’s reinvention.
And then there’s Dylan—his work continues to surprise her, even now. “It’s like trying to swim across the ocean,” she said. “You can do it your whole life—you’re never going to get to the other side.”
Osborne doesn’t approach Dylan’s work as sacred or untouchable. She sees his songs more like living texts, meant to be revisited and reinterpreted.
“That’s part of keeping his tradition alive,” she said. “It’s like Shakespeare. Those plays were performed in his lifetime, and they’ll continue to be performed forever.”
Tickets for this week’s performance at Universal Preservation Hall are available at universalpreservationhall.org. Her artwork is currently on exhibit at City Winery in New York City’s Pier 57. “Dylanology Live” will be released on Friday, April 25.
