Music

Joan Osborne Sings the Songs of Bob Dylan

Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

Rob Adams

four stars

THE Queen’s Hall reverted to its original use as a church on Sunday. It was the church of Bob Dylan, though, as Joan Osborne drew on her southern states upbringing, and possibly something gained from touring with the great gospel-soul singer Mavis Staples, in refreshing songs from across Dylan’s extensive catalogue.

Some of these songs don’t need much, if anything, to be brought bang up to date and Osborne’s apologies on behalf of the American electorate helped to give a particularly sharp edge to Masters of War.

With superb accompaniment from Kevin Bents, making every song a hymn with his gospel-flavoured, digging deep into the groove piano and electric keyboard style, and Jim Boggia, whose acoustic and electric guitar licks were perfectly judged, Osborne led a self-contained mini orchestra, adding tambourine, shakers and finger-snaps as the mood required.

The Mighty Quinn’s messiah qualities were given full value and the Biblical imagery of flood and sacrifice contained in High Water and Highway 61 was enriched by Osborne’s clear, light but lived-in voice. She really does inhabit a lyric and is as good at delivering humour as she is a verbal snarl– Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat was as breezily pleasurable as Tangled Up in Blue was dramatically engrossing.

While undoubtedly honouring Dylan’s oeuvre, Osborne, Bents and Boggia aren’t afraid to put their own spin on it. Everybody Must Get Stoned was lightly disguised on a stealthy groove and the slightly surprising introduction of an electronic rhythm box on Gotta Serve Somebody heralded both a gospel flavour and a seductive groove that might have graced the work of Marvin Gaye.