Combining tracks from her 1991 album Soul Show: Live at Delta 88 with the 1993 EP Blue Million Miles,
Early Recordings isn't as revelatory as
Joan Osborne fans would like. Instead of capturing a raw talent searching for her own style, it showcases a workmanlike blues-rocker, capable of turning out competent originals and unremarkable covers of both
Dusty Springfield ("Son of a Preacher Man") and
Captain Beefheart ("His Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles"). None of this is bad, but it is mediocre, which is almost a worse offense. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine