I was so terrified that I could barely open my eyes on stage and I was grabbing onto the mic stand for dear life as the one thing between me and the audience. If you are a guitar player you have this thing in front of you it sort of feels like a security blanket. But if you are a singer, you don't have that. So it was hard, and it was very stressful, but again there was something about it that just felt like I was releasing a part of myself that was not able to be expressed in any other place.

-- Joan Osborne

An excerpt from an interview with Billboard's Soul Sisters Podcast