Anders Osborne

Anders Osborne

On his 17th full-length album, singer-songwriter Anders Osborne describes Picasso’s Villa, “a condensed story about living in America between 2018-2021, the fears, confusion, deep joy and peace achieved through true friendship, family, community, hours of meditation and detachment from ego.

Bewildered, the first track released from the album, is an impressionistic reflection on four decades of American politics and culture, from the Reagan era through the digital world of the twenty-first century. Osborne says, “Bewildered began as an exercise in historical observation but it was engaging in a fun way to deep dive into the stories of the past that created instant cultural shifts. All these basic human rights issues have been made into divisive political issues. But at the core of everything is the bewilderment of suffering and the basic human longing for bliss. We are all playing a divine, eternal game with Brahman, this world's duality prevents good nor bad from prevailing. We are bewildered and beguiled by love and fear.”

The song Dark Decatur Love, describes a time in Osborne’s early twenties when he was living and working down in the French Quarter of New Orleans, “I was feeling very sentimental and missing my youth. It brought me back to a very romantic time. There were five or six years in the lower French Quarter where we had started our own little scene of artists, pool sharks, and dancers that all congregated together there. All we thought about every day was being ourselves—trying on different costumes to discover who we were, seeking for truth in the darkest places. It was a joyful exercise in reminiscing in a beautiful way.”

The song Le Grand Zombie is Osborne’s response and tribute to the passing and influence of his friend and New Orleans legend Dr. John. The title song of Picasso’s Villa evokes the lives and work of legendary as a vehicle to express some of the contradictions of a musician’s life (Osborne is also a prolific painter himself). “Picasso’s Villa attempts to describe the music business and the jester like role performing musicians have. We’re a currency used, adjudicated, negotiated, transacted, valued and sometimes discarded.”

The album was recorded in New Orleans with an all-star cast of backing musicians, including guitarist Waddy Wachtel, drummer Chad Cromwell bassist and Bob Glaub. Sonically, the album captures a balance between the heavy, Crazy Horse-inspired rock present in Osborne’s live shows, while simultaneously leaning into the more contemplative singer-songwriter roots that inspired his music from the very beginning. “My process is so rough and free form,” Osborne explains, “but on this record, we managed to capture all that dirt with the right amount of polish on it.”

For Osborne, who has been in a twelve-step program for fifteen years, “The biggest change in getting sober was the focus on meditation and prayer, just looking more inward. When I’m sleeping in 140 different beds a year, eating unhealthy foods, the meditation is what keeps me centered. Holding myself in that sacred space for a while is what makes it possible for me to do all this.”

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Host or Publisher Fairfield Theatre Company