Recommended Listening: Joan Osborne "Songs of Bob Dylan"

Singer and songwriter Joan Osborne selects some gems from the Bob Dylan oeuvre, applies her interpretative magic, and delivers a terrific album with Songs of Bob Dylan. Osborne's beautiful voice is warm and the arrangements are fresh and engaging. It is a great pleasure to listen to this music.

Osborne honed the smooth and polished sound of these tracks during two, two-week residencies at New York City's Café Carlyle. Café Carlyle is an intimate space which features jazz and cabaret performers and the sound created by Osborne and her fellow artists reflects that space. If you want rock amphitheater versions of Dylan, then this is not the disc to buy. This is bluesy and soulful singing born in a club. Osborne's singing is supported beautifully through restraint from the other excellent musicians playing on the album.

Finally, Dylan's amazing lyrics, delivered clearly and cleanly by Osborne, shine. To listen again to a song we've heard often over many years, such as Highway 61 Revisited, and be amazed by it anew is quite a feat.

Great music. Check out Songs of Bob Dylan by Joan Osborne.