I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful and elucidating responses to my post on religion in entertainment (and religion as depicted on Big Love.) I’m going to extend that conversation later today, but first, I just want to get funky. 

Or soulful. Or rocking. Or whatever you want to call the following clips from one of the best live music events ever broadcast on VH-1.

Join the party after the jump!

Picture it: October 1995. VH-1 taps Melissa Etheridge to kick off their short-lived series “Duets,” bather than pair with a well-known colleague, Etheridge features several up-and-coming artists who need exposure. One at a time, she duets with them on one of her songs, then one of their songs.

And who are those artists?

Well… before I tell you, please remember that we’re talking late 1995, before any of these women were well-known. What became of them later is not the point.

That said, Melissa’s duet partners were Paula Cole, Joan Osborne, and Jewel. As a palate cleanser, she kicked it with Sophie B. Hawkins, who at the time was enjoying a comeback with “As I Lay Me Down.”

Need proof that the results kicked ass? Well, check out Melissa and Joan (not Rivers!) on “Bring Me Some Water:”

As you know, I love me some Joanie O., and the love affair started with this performance. Because… damn. The things these women do at 3:00 are out of control… the vocal interplay, the improvisations, the blues-rock commitment. Even on a grainy video transfer, you can feel their relaxed passion jumping through the screen. 

But the real miracle of this concert is that it makes Jewel seem subtle and unpretentious. Observe this performance of “Foolish Games,” which is one of two Jewel songs that I actually like:

Why can’t Jewel sound this textured and emotional all the time? She sucked when I saw her at the Lilith Fair in 1996, and almost all of her recordings make me want to claw my elbows off. She just caught lightning in a bottle here. Then she went back to never putting the towels on the floor anymore.

I also love the “Foolish Games” clip because it features so many appearances from the Melissa Etheridge Fist of Sincerity. I kind of love how earnest she is… like, she just can’t sing anything unless she’s feeling it, had clenched in earnest fury. She can be a little cheesy, but mostly I dig her dedication.

Sadly, I can’t find any of the Paula Cole clips on YouTube (though I did find the picture that’s at the top of this post). I remember, though, that she duetted with Melissa on “Watch the Woman’s Hands,” which is a great song from her first album Harbinger. This was almost a year before “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?,” and I’ve always given VH-1 and Melissa Etheridge credit for noticing that Cole was an interesting artist way before the rest of us did.

To close it out, here’s Melissa and Sophie’s freakazoid take on “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.” Are they having sex on stage? Why is Sophie B. Hawkins crawling on the floor? Did anyone in the audience feel fear? Whatever the answers, this is some tasty, outre stuff.