I think music has a very important role to play in the world right now because of the very unique power that it has.

You know, it's just, it's thrilling and I love that. I think there's really nothing like the feeling of live music.

So there is this magic of making music and I really want to stay in touch with that.

So I can literally still remember the first time I heard Joan Osborne's iconic song, One of Us.

I was 29 a couple of years into my career as a federal enforcement attorney with the SEC and not loving my time at all in the industry.

Asking big questions when I turn on the radio and I hear Joan's soulful blues voice asking what if God was One of Us.

It stopped me in my tracks. Now that was 1995 and that song still has the same effect on me.

It also changed the trajectory of Osborne's career in life and ways that affect her to this day nearly three decades later.

So Joan, she was a fixture in the downtown New York music scene in the 90s.

But when that debut album relished came out and One of Us, which was on that album, took off.

It exploded her into music super start and let to seven Grammy nominations and fueled what has become a decades long career populated by world tours.

Many more albums a deepening commitment to weaving together music and advocacy and activism and collaborations with everyone from the funk brothers to Stevie Wonder, the Grateful Dead, Paparazzi, Bob Dylan and so many others.

And what's even more amazing Joan never expected any of this to happen.

She didn't expect to have a career in music. In fact, it all started as a dare from a friend at an open mic night in an East Village club.

While she was a New York studying to be a filmmaker at NYU, a story that she goes into in our conversation.

And when the pandemic made it impossible to tour something she has literally been doing for decades, she decided to take these last few years to do a little organizing around the houses so many of us have done and in the process.

She discovered she stumbled upon literally this treasure trove of old recordings and demos she had completely forgotten that she had.

Many from her years of live performances at radio stations and curated them into her latest release radio waves and to her great joy, she's now back on the road.

So be sure to check out her live performance dates and catch her on tour once again.

I am so excited to share this conversation where we go deep into so many of the big awakenings and moments along this journey in music and activism and advocacy and creativity and life.

I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

So much of your world and so much of your work has been on the road.

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