Customer Rating: 
Summary: Joan's voice carries the songs
Comment: None of these songs needed to be covered again. But, hanging out with Joan and her rich voice is great! Mellow, rich and very comfortable.
Customer Rating: Summary: A Timeless Homage to the 70's
Comment: Joan Osborne has won me over again, this time as the singer of 70's soul covers and the writer of new songs to fall in love with. I strayed over to this looking for a wife gift, I tend to listen to more Jazz and Blues vocalists, yet I found her voice styling and her arrangements tight and complete. I can say proudly that my wife and I sang along with her on her covers of Kiss And Say Goodbye, Midnight Train To Georgia, Sara Smile, Break Up To Make Up and Kiss And Say Goodbye. And other than the overly maudlin Baby Is A Butterfly, Ms Osborne has given us a wonderful makeout album... oops cd.
Customer Rating: Summary: A mixed bag.
Comment: Joan has a great soulful voice and she has proved her versatility in handling everything from melodic pop to twangy country.
Her love for Motown favorites can be felt on "Breakfast In Bed".
A homage to early soul songs from the late '60s, "Breakfast In Bed" shows Osborne wasn't a one trick pony with her huge single "(What If God Was) One of Us".
On her latest offering, she looks toward Motown, with worshipful, full-throated covers of R&B classics plus six original songs, each written with such R&B style that you first wonder if you've heard that tune before.
After last year's little-heard Pretty Little Stranger released only seven months before this one, she wraps her husky voice all the way around a bunch of classics such as "Ain't No Sunshine", "Midnight Train To Georgia" and Dusty Springfield's "Breakfast in Bed".
She's in fine voice throughout her debut album for Time Life, but the inclusion of her two phenomenal covers from Standing in the Shadows of Motown at the end of the collection actually highlights the album's shortcomings.
The album is a real mixed bag.
Her voice is excellent but her languid and almost emotion-free interptretations are pretty far from a specially adventurous and engaging record.
There are no ground-breaking elements here, nothing's memorable, rather the album sways towards mainstream R&B which is a shame as the soul tracks are excellent and her potentials are limitless.
It seems that she and the producer have chosen to favour the marketing and the charts over quality and originality.
Customer Rating: Summary: Great
Comment: Great Kick back and relax music. Joan does a wonderful job on this album! My fav is Eliminate the Night
Customer Rating: Summary: Her Best
Comment: It is my opinion that this if Joan's best work. It is very soulful, and the sound is great. I would highly recommend this cd to anyone. I have played it over and over again. I wish that I could get it in SACD.
