Anders Osborne

Residing in New Orleans, Anders Osborne writes songs and plays guitar while fusing blues, funk, soul, rock, and classic R&B into performances marked by straightforward emotional intensity. He reached the Crescent City from Sweden during 1990 and established himself as a charting tunesmith, supplying material for Tim McGraw, Trombone Shorty, and Keb Mo' among others. His first album, Which Way to Here from 1995, yielded a pair of Top Five singles. Ash Wednesday Blues, released in 2001, became a touchstone of Americana, and Coming Down from 2007 offered a candid self-portrait along with reflections on life after Hurricane Katrina. American Patchwork in 2010 and Black Eye Galaxy in 2012 each earned widespread international praise. He issued Spacedust & Ocean Views and Flower Box independently in 2016. Buddha and the Blues from 2019 and Bewildered from 2022 were tracked in Los Angeles alongside veteran studio musicians; Picasso's Villa, released in 2024, used the same players yet was recorded in NOLA.

Born in Uddevalla, Sweden, in 1966, Osborne grew up with a father who worked as a professional drummer and jazz enthusiast whose early-1960s group performed throughout Europe. As a child he developed a passion for the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly Joni Mitchell's Blue album whose prominent open D guitar tuning shaped his initial approach, before following those artists' influences back to blues and folk sources. At sixteen he left home and began wandering the globe, performing in exchange for meals. He arrived in New York City in 1985 carrying only five dollars. Through a contact in New Orleans he hitchhiked southward, and upon encountering the city's overlapping sounds, lifestyles, and cultures he felt both disoriented and certain he had found his home. Apart from a period spent in Nashville as a staff songwriter, he has remained there ever since. In 1989 he recorded Doin' Fine for the independent Rabadash label. Break the Chain followed in 1994; its reception, strengthened by live performances, drew the attention of Sony's OKeh imprint, which signed him for Which Way to Here. That set produced the Top Five singles "Favorite Son" and "Pleasin' You." Live at Tipitina's appeared on Shanachie in 1998, and Living Room came the following year. The reflective Ash Wednesday Blues surfaced in early 2001. In 2002 Osborne completed his final pair of Shanachie releases: the lively, mysterious Bury the Hatchet with Big Chief Monk Boudreaux of the Mardi Gras Indian Tribe the Golden Eagles, and the blues- and Americana-infused Break the Chain.

Coming Down, issued in 2007 on the M.C. imprint, stood as his most personal set to date, balancing raw confession with observations of post-Katrina New Orleans. Live at Jazz Fest 2008, spotlighting his road band, surfaced that same year. Having battled substance abuse since age thirteen and a subsequent bipolar diagnosis, Osborne achieved sobriety in 2009 after more than a decade of attempts. He then joined Chicago's Alligator label and released the energetic American Patchwork in 2010. Following nearly continuous touring he produced sessions for Johnny Sansone, Tab Benoit, and Mike Zito. Black Eye Galaxy appeared in spring 2012, co-produced with Galactic's Stanton Moore and Warren Riker. While touring in support of what critics hailed as his strongest work, he paused late that year to cut the relaxed Three Free Amigos, a semi-acoustic six-track EP issued in February 2013. He performed with Phil Lesh's Terrapin Crossroads, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, and others. That fall he returned with Peace. Two years later he collaborated with the North Mississippi Allstars—Luther Dickinson being a longtime friend and frequent partner—on Freedom & Dreams for the band's NMO label. Deciding to work independently, Osborne launched his Back on Dumaine imprint and inaugurated it in 2016 with Spacedust & Oceanviews, an intimate, low-key counterpart to his Alligator recordings, followed by Flower Box featuring Johnny Vidacovich, Ivan Neville, Brady Blade, and Rickie Lee Jones. He also established the Send Me a Friend organization, an all-volunteer network of sober individuals who support musicians in recovery at home and on the road by helping them steer clear of temptation.

Having composed songs at his New Orleans residence that explored a Southern California singer-songwriter sensibility, Osborne sought to merge the two traditions and enlisted longtime associate, drummer and producer Chad Cromwell. They scheduled sessions at Brethren Studio in Ojai, California, with engineer Niko Bolas and assembled a group of top Los Angeles musicians that included guitarist Waddy Wachtel, keyboardist Benmont Tench, bassist Bob Glaub, Cromwell, and vocalist Windy Wagner-Cromwell. The ensemble recorded several tracks live, resulting in ten songs, with additional overdubs completed in Malibu and at Osborne's Louisiana home studio. Buddha and the Blues appeared in spring 2019. The approach proved successful, prompting a return to Los Angeles for Bewildered in 2022, this time with fellow New Orleanian Ivan Neville replacing Tench. In 2024 Osborne released Picasso's Villa, again employing the Bewildered lineup but shifting the sessions to Esplanade Studio in New Orleans. Beyond the core band he enlisted local vocalists Windy Wagner-Cromwell, Eric Bolivar, Irena Sage, and Tiffany Lamson, fiddler Gina Forsyth, harmonicist Johnny Sansone, a horn section, and the Budapest Strings directed by Amotz Plessner.