SAN DIEGO — Hearing Cassandra Wilson sing may not quite have qualified as a religious experience, but it often came close enough to inspire a state of near rapture for her devoted listeners, me included.

Or, as saxophonist and former Wilson collaborator Greg Osby once told me of Wilson, who died Wednesday at the age of 70: “She can read the Bible and make more music out of it than many other singers, (using) just her speaking voice. She’s an exceptional artist, not just a singer, but an exceptional musician.”

Wilson, who made her memorable San Diego concert debut in 1994 at downtown’s Horton Grand Hotel, was indeed exceptional. Her rare artistic depth and unusually broad stylistic range made her a key influence on a generation of standout singer-songwriters who followed in her footsteps, including Norah Jones, Lizz Wright, India.Arie, Rhiannon Giddens and Cécile McLorin-Salvant.

Jones was so impressed by Wilson’s 1995 Blue Note Records’ album, “New Moon Daughter” — which was produced by Craig Street — that it is the key reason she signed with Blue Note herself, after being courted by other labels.

“‘New Moon Daughter’ was one of my favorite albums that (wasn’t) 50 years (old),” Jones said in a 2022 San Diego Union-Tribune interview. “That is such a special album … Her voice is so haunting and that album was put together with the beautiful production by Craig, with all these amazing musicians. I was in love with Kevin Breit’s guitar playing on ‘New Moon Daughter’ and knew I wanted it on my album, too. Cassandra’s songs are great, the covers they chose are great, and (the album) has such a beautiful mood.”

A Mississippi native, Wilson earned two Grammy Awards and was an NEA Jazz Master recipient. She was steeped in a variety of jazz, blues and folk traditions, but also stood out for her singular ability to transform songs by other artists — from Neil Young and Miles Davis to Cyndi Lauper and The Stylistics — into something so exceptional and unique that she surpassed the original versions with her definitive versions of them.

This held equally true whether she was reinventing Joni Mitchell’s “Black Crow,” Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey,” Robert Johnson’s “Come On in My Kitchen” or Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” Each of those songs is featured on Wilson’s transcendent 1993 breakthrough album, “Blue Light ‘Til Dawn.”

It was my favorite album released that year, so much so that I bought nearly a dozen copies to give to friends as holiday gifts.

As I wrote about one of the half-dozen concerts Wilson performed in San Diego between 1994 and 2000: “A master of subtlety and finely honed nuance, the Grammy-winning singer creates and sustains musical intensity at whisper-soft volume levels. Her canny mix of jazz, blues, funk, pop, folk and soul is as fresh and uncluttered as her ability to combine traditional and postmodern approaches into a rich, wonderfully balanced whole … She was able to make wordless vocal lines sound as eloquent as her most impassioned lyrical couplets.”

Sensual and sacred

Wilson’s best albums, like her early 1994 Horton Grand concert here and her subsequent performance at Humphreys, sounded sensual on the surface but sacred at its core.

“I think there’s a spirituality in the music and I think people get that,” Wilson said in a Union-Tribune interview previewing that show. There’s a feeling of unassailable inner peace and I think that’s what I’m about right now: stilling thought processes and healing.”

As for her quest to take even the best-known songs by other artists to unimaginably wonderful new places, Wilson said: “My approach has always been to get to someplace that hasn’t been gotten to before and to explore new possibilities with music, regardless of whether it’s original material or material that, as you say, has been done definitively by other people.

“My approach also is to really submit and bring a great deal of humility to that kind of music. It’s sort of like a ‘falling backwards into darkness’ approach. I’ve always believed I’m guided, spiritually, so I allow that to happen as much as possible.”

Wilson was also a gifted composer. Her best songs, including “A Little Warm Death” and her luminous a cappella piece, “Sankofa,” were haunting gems in which her musical skill, artistic vision and heartfelt emotion were greater than the sum of their parts.

She also had the ability to burrow down into the essence of a song to find new meaning and possibilities. A prime example of this is her sublime 1995 recording of “Last Train to Clarksville.” Previously a jaunty pop-rock hit for the Monkees, despite its lyrics about a Vietnam War veteran’s casket being shipped home for burial, Wilson turned it into a slow, brooding elegy that — as she often did — inspired goosebumps.

But no matter how sophisticated or intricate her music was, it was imbued with various shades of the blues.

“How did I come to the blues? I’m a Black person!” Wilson said, letting out a deep, throaty chuckle. “That’s my answer. I’m an African American, born in Mississippi. I always tell people, ‘When you come up in Mississippi, it’s hard to escape blues.’ But I didn’t look at blues as a serious discipline until recently.

“I just took it for granted and didn’t take the time to listen and study it. It opens up a lot of doors for me, emotionally, and it helps me to come to terms with who I am and where I come from.”

Coming to terms with who Cassandra Wilson was, and how she elevated every piece of music she performed, is easy. Contemplating a world without her is not. But the singular recorded legacy she leaves behind should resonate for many years to come, even if she was her most critical listener.

“I’m very hard on myself; I need to lighten up,” Wilson said. “I’ll do a performance and people will be happy, and say, `That was nice.’ If they don’t say, `That was great,’ I’m not happy.”

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