Joan Osborne in Concert

Joan Osborne.

Joan Osborne performs live in Philadelphia.

Patti Singer, WXPN-FM

Over the course of her nearly two-decade career, singer/songwriter Joan Osborne has gone from relative obscurity to Lilith Fair mainstay to venerated cult act. Combining rootsy, folk-driven Americana with blues, rock, and pop, Osborne's music has a peculiar quality of seeming familiar and original at the same time. Osborne performed a concert from WXPN and World Cafe Live in Philadelphia on Nov. 3.

Though she was born in Anchorage, Kentucky, Osborne didn't take off as a musician until she moved to New York City to study film at NYU. After performing "God Bless the Child" at a bar's amateur night, she decided to begin performing music and launch her own record label, Womanly Hips, to release her debut album in 1991. Titled Soul Show: Live at Delta 88, the disc was enough to land Osborne a major-label deal for 1995's Relish. The album proved to be her most popular to date, with the ubiquitous "One Of Us" propelling it to triple-platinum status.

Her newest record, Pretty Little Stranger, finds Osborne embracing the sound of Nashville as she never has before. Featuring six originals and six covers, the collection places her distinctive vocals and musicianship front and center.