The Art of Longevity Season 11, Episode 6: Valerie June

Valerie June’s journey to what we might call ‘cult stardom’ hasn’t been easy. 

“I was cleaning houses while playing bars & clubs at night. And I had a vision that I would not make it - my music wouldn't reach its audience through regular means - it would reach its audience through musicians. My friends would help me. I’m a musician’s musician”. 

Working through a talented community of musicians that has included Booker T Jones, Brandi Carlile and none other than Mavis Staples, eventually brought Valerie June together with her own audience. For her new project, June works with Blind Boys of Alabama, Norah Jones, DJ Cavem Moetavation and M Ward, supremo guitarist and producer of new album Owls, Omens and Oracles. 

I wanted to get her view of her own music, because the music business loves to put artists in lanes, boxes and pigeon holes. How on earth did an eclectic artist like June slip through the cracks? Her music has been described by others as an amalgam of soul, gospel, Appalachian folk, bluegrass, country, spiritual pop, African blues and my own favourite…cosmic rock. How does she describe her music in response to this assessment? With a joyful guffaw and an emphatic reaction: 

“I’m a singer-songwriter. I follow the songs, whatever they want to be is what I do. I’m kinda like their servant. All those names related to the music - I used to get attached to those and now I don’t ”.

In Jeff Tweedy’s entertaining memoir World Within a Song, the author, singer songwriter and Wilco frontman says: “Taking something old and making it sound modern is nothing new”. And yet obsessing over your references, but melding them into something that is uniquely you is one of the key themes for artists of longevity. Both concepts are critical to June’s work.

“I do commune with the ancestors. I know I’m standing on the shoulders of many who came before me. I feel them beside me as I’m talking now. I’m not doing this by myself. I wanted to understand my people through music, and I got there through studying the blues”. Most songs come to me as voices. I’ll try this instrument and be like “no, not that one…like Goldilocks. I try many different instruments to connect that voice to what it wants. Then, I found a team of people to listen to and understand”. 

If Valerie June really is the Goldilocks of songcraft, the results are indeed nourishing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Making a hit record is tough, but maintaining success is another skill entirely. On The Art of Longevity, we explore the artist experience of the music business from the inside. I want to find out what separates those artists and bands that have survived decades in the music business from all those who've fallen by the wayside. We follow a narrative inspired by a quote from Brett Anderson of Suede, who said that all successful artists have followed a similar career arc, like Stations of the Cross, The Struggle, Success, Excess, Disintegration, and if you're lucky, enlightenment. With insights and stories for music fans, aspiring musicians, and creators, this is the Art of Longevity. Valerie June, welcome to The Art of Longevity.

SPEAKER_00: 0:57

Thank you. What a cool name. The Art of Longevity. I was like, hmm, what are we going to talk about? I love the word longevity.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05

It's a good word. It's on everybody's lips, the word longevity. Although it does get mistaken every now and again for a healthcare podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16

I believe it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17

And I get pitches from health gurus and people who've invented the next piece of fascinating tech to make your life longer. I'm like, have you looked at the podcast? It is a music podcast. But yeah, longevity is something it fascinated me always to talk to artists about how they survive this business. Because it takes a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 1:49

Does it?

SPEAKER_02: 1:50

I think so. Let's let's get into this. But uh this is I think this is episode 75.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56

Wow. This is longevity.

SPEAKER_02: 1:58

Uh so yeah, hopefully this the show's got legs. But one of the things that is very clear the way the music industry works is they like to put artists in a lane so that it's clear how they can market you, find an audience, sell you on social media, whatever. How did you fall through the cracks?

SPEAKER_00: 2:20

That's a good way to ask that question. You are really good at this. I heard you were good at this, but now I know. Um, yeah, I think I got by with a little help from my friends. And you know, years ago when I was first I was cleaning houses and living in Memphis and serving coffee and doing all my many jobs and playing at bars and clubs at night when I got off from those jobs. And I got a vision one day. I was probably like dusting somebody something. And the vision was that I would not make it, or my music wouldn't reach its audience through regular means, it would reach its audience through musicians. That musicians were going to appreciate what I was doing and that they were gonna help me. And that's the way it's been. My friends. They've helped me. I'm a musician's musician.

SPEAKER_02: 3:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you really are. So you kind of grew a community and worked through that community. This is wonderful to hear because I think this is the way a lot of you know, to use a an old school term, kind of real deal musicians need to work. Because otherwise you're playing a game that's been played by everybody, and you're just gonna get lost in in the noise. But to kind of find your own people and work through a community is is is the way to go.

SPEAKER_00: 3:58

Yeah, I think we kind of um at my level, you know, Michael Hurley just passed, the underground godfather of folk, and I love so many like underground kind of obscure artists, and you know, I haven't made it mainstream, and I'm still hustling and hoping ends keep meeting and trying to, you know, continue along my path and understand that that doesn't show what tomorrow will look like. There's because of that, this creative path, it kind of is always changing in the sense that friends and and those who appreciate it. It's not about fame so much, I'll say. That's what it is. That community, it's one of those communities that hopefully when I'm in my 80s, I'll still have those folks, you know, I'll still have that kind of connection with my audience. Whether I'm on the top of people's ears, like you hear Bob Dylan, but then you hear Michael Hurley, and you're like, who's Michael Hurley? So maybe that'll be me. Yeah. But he played his music and did his music, and I wouldn't be here without artists like that. And he was a musician's musician, and I appreciate those types of artists as well as the big artists like Bob Dylan. I love, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 5:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:25

I love it all.

SPEAKER_02: 5:28

That's how it is. That's not a bad uh accolade to have.

SPEAKER_00: 5:32

I I sure thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 5:34

Uh I mean uh uh I'm gonna skip to a quote that I was gonna bring up later, because you just brought it up. So this was Ken Tucker writing for NPR. This was a review of Pushing Against the Stone, I think. Your fourth album, effectively, but your first album kind of on a label. And the quote is the marketplace will do what it will with Valerie June. She'll either be perceived as a quaint semi-novelty act and become a cult artist, or her ringing voice will excite the ears of people now trained to hear big voices by Adele. And she'll become a star. You don't can get to control that, do you? You just do what you do and it shakes out how it shakes out.

SPEAKER_00: 6:20

Yeah, it just shakes. And you know, I got chills hearing that just because, wow, okay, Ken Tucker, you kind of like were the oracle of my life. I didn't know it then, and I don't even until you read that, I couldn't even like tell you that it existed, those words. But yeah, the cult following, that's what I have, and that's where I am, and that's what I do. And those are the people who, you know, make it so that I can continue to do shows and make music on the public level. I'm gonna do it no matter what, because I did it wh when I was cleaning houses. That was what I did all day, was write songs while I was doing it. But, you know, that's just how music is. It's if you make music, it's in your life, regardless of fame and becoming Adele, as he said, or whether you're like, I don't know, Joanna Newsome or Karen Dalton, or people like Nico who had more of a cult following, which I love all of them, but that longevity thing is what it's about when it comes to making music, that you can just be excited that you get to wake up and do something so magical. It's just that's what I do.

SPEAKER_02: 7:40

Yeah, there are many paths to longevity. Well, let's explore the music. I want to know where this heady mix of styles came from, how it grew in your soul and in your mind, because your music, as you know by now, is described as an amalgam of, and I've had to list them out because there are so many: soul, gospel, appalacian folk, bluegrass, country, spiritual pop, African blues. I think my favorite is cosmic rock. All these words used to describe your music, how do you describe it?

SPEAKER_00: 8:21

Yeah, I just say, usually, if I'm being honest, I just say I'm a singer-songwriter, and that I play many genres of music and many types of instruments, and I follow the songs. Whatever they want to be is what I what I like do. And I'm just kind of like their servant. So whichever direction they send me in is the most way I go. And um that's really what it is. But yeah, you know, all those names, they're how people relate to the music. I used to get attached to that and I don't anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 8:58

Well, give me an example. So Endless Tree came out today. I have to say that's a song for the day. That could be my theme tune for the rest of the week for sure. If not for for uh a little longer than that. How do you associate the theme of the song and the lyric with the particular style where it goes?

SPEAKER_00: 9:24

I really rarely do it by lyric. That's a good question. I usually just like receive the song and then go around to my different instruments. Like I'm in the kitchen with different spices and I'm making something. I'm like, mm-hmm, I could start with nutmeg, but I'm really just feeling some salt and pepper right now. So I just like use the instruments and pull them out and play what I have received vocally, because most songs come to me first as voices. So I sing and play, mmm, not that one, like Goldilocks. Try the next one, not that one, and go around to the different instruments. Sometimes I sit in an instrument like a song, like all I really want to do. And I'd never played the piano before, and I just like looked up some chords because you can do that now with your phone. So great. And I started teaching myself some basic chords, and as I started to play the chords, that's when I heard the voice. So the instrument sometimes does open like open the door to the song, but that usually isn't the way I write. But normally the way I write is I hear a voice, and then I try many different instruments until I connect that voice to what it wants. And then the next job is to connect with a team of people that align with the song, that we can bring all the many other voices that I hear to life, because I hear layers and layers of voices. And if I sang all those voices, it would just sound like to people. But if those are put put in different instruments, like maybe is a horn, and then is a string, or you know, then that's more like that's easier for someone to listen to and understand than having 10,000 voices coming to your wife.

SPEAKER_02: 11:25

Okay. So that's where your collaborators come in to help you make those decisions and choices. Okay. There's something that fascinates me about the timeless quality of your work. So it's drawing on something very old, but it sounds quite modern. So I'm reading Jeff Tweety's book at the moment. I dip into it, The World Within a Song. Have you read that one?

SPEAKER_00: 11:50

I haven't. I need to.

SPEAKER_02: 11:52

Jeff is a beautiful writer. He's just an amazing writer, very funny as well. Uh he says taking something old and making it sound new is the oldest and best trick in the musician's book. Are you aware when you're working on a song of what you're channeling, how far back it goes? Or do you not even think about it? Because I know you grew up with a lot of traditional gospel sounds and music. Are you aware that you're channeling all of that history?

SPEAKER_00: 12:22

The history, yes. You're asking some really good questions. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_02: 12:27

Um, it's only 10, it's only 10 o'clock in the morning, so you're doing pretty well.

SPEAKER_00: 12:31

Well, that's why I got up at six. So I could be sharp for you. But because my brain runs super slow in the morning. I was teaching at a university last week and I was like, uh, sorry guys, it's eight o'clock asked. My brain didn't wake up till noon.

SPEAKER_02: 12:46

Which one, by the way?

SPEAKER_00: 12:47

Um, it's called Gettysburg College. Okay. Where the Civil War went down and he gave that Gettysburg address, that old Lincoln. So, um, yeah, my brain's a little slow in the mornings, but I do commune with the ancestors. And I study, you know, part of the studies that I was doing at Gettysburg College and the teaching was I was invited to be there from the African American Studies Department to talk about how music connects with our culture and how it connects to many cultures and how we share that with all the world and how it can bring us together as a society and humans. And and so when I start to receive the songs, I know I'm standing on the shoulders of many who've come before me. And I didn't want to study black culture through opening up a book about Frederick Douglass or uh W.E.B. Du Bois. Like, do not read me a story of slavery. That's not how I wanted to learn about my people. I wanted to learn about my people through the music, and I got that from studying the blues. I got that from studying country, I got that from studying folk, and I got that from being raised in the country and living in the country and being surrounded by all kinds of people. People who voted for Trump, people who didn't vote for Trump, all types of people living together and learning how to thrive and share community and hold space and disagree and be. And so I know that the people that sacrifice so that I can be sitting here so free in my skin and body and my gender and self, I know I'm standing on their shoulders and I know that I feel them beside me as I'm talking now. So it's very important for me to not act like I'm here doing this by myself. There are many, many with me. And even, you know, as peers and even what I'm putting out for those who are coming, because I have so many nieces and nephews, and so many souls are being born every day. So us just knowing that we have a responsibility and accountability in this time as writers and artists, and the power of that can be seen when you look at what happened at the Kennedy Center and how in our nation they took one of the most important theaters in our country that had plays, that had music of all kinds and art exhibits, and grabbed control of it because the artistic voice is so powerful. That makes me shake.

SPEAKER_02: 15:20

Yeah, I was reading about this. I mean, this this was an incredible thing to read about. But you're right, I think, and this is an interesting time, I think, to be an artist. I mean, your song Endless Tree that came out today is is the antidote to to what's going on. But it is, it's bringing us together. Through time and now, like from you know, people of different backgrounds and and political differences, and we're all really the same. Essentially, I think that that's nicely explored by your music.

SPEAKER_00: 15:55

I definitely think we are, and where we're different, we can learn to appreciate one another through art, you know, and through music, and that opens the door to food and culture and sharing tables and sharing rooms and spaces and creating communities. So I see that, and I know that music has always been for me, when I look through history, it's been a way to connect people and to bring and it's the universal language.

SPEAKER_02: 16:24

Well, I also really appreciate the whole idea of crossover, uh, which again is another, you know, music writer, journalist, industry word in a in a way. I really do appreciate it because I don't know anything about gospel music. I've heard it in the background and places, but it's never truly connected with me. The blues doesn't particularly do much for me. Uh you know, we all have different tastes. But there are artists that come along, and you're one of them. I was listening to this Annie and the Caldwells album as well that came out just a couple of weeks ago, which is a gospel record, but very accessible. Very poppy, and you turn that music, it's like a gateway. You kind of open up the the styles of music that maybe people wouldn't be drawn to necessarily, but you're you're opening that gateway, which is I think that's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:22

Oh, I've gotta check that out. There's a new gospel music.

SPEAKER_02: 17:25

Yeah, yeah, check it. It's I think it's on it's on David Burns label, so he's he kind of plucked them out of uh you know, they've been going for a while and under the radar, and he's signed them for this new record. It is it's yeah, you should check it out. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:43

Okay. David Byrne's so great.

SPEAKER_02: 17:46

Do you see the crossover thing as being a thing? Is that is that relevant to to you? Or do you not think about it?

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

I don't much think about it, but I do know that you know, you might not listen to the blues, but if you listen to rock and roll, then you understand that the blues gave birth to that. And then if you listen to hip-hop, the blues gave birth to that. And if you listen to jazz, the blues gave birth to that. And, you know, it is, in a sense, the root of almost everything we hear. So I like just know that and feel that because of that, any direction that I want to go as an artist is open. If I want to go country punk, soul, rock and roll, soul. That's open. The doorway has been open. My people invented the blues, and they like gave me a whole history of music and a whole landscape to explore with meadows like never touched of sounds that we can play with. So I feel like um it's a way too of breaking the rules and and doing it in a way that's that's authentically yourself when you take different genres and you say, well, why not have nutmeg with pepper with a little honey? You know, like put that all together with some cayenne.

SPEAKER_02: 19:20

There's some food themes coming through here as well.

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02: 19:23

Um, I mean, what are your recurring themes, would you say, and how do they manifest on this new record?

SPEAKER_00: 19:32

Hmm. Recurring themes just started to really settle for me in the last record or two. And in some sense, I would say that one of our elders, Mavis Staples, is one of the people who even pointed out to me that themes are something to think about in in our music and what we create. Because I'd written a song. For her. She called and wanted songs. And I said, Well, sh what kind of songs are you looking for? I've got like a hundred songs. And she said, Well, we Pop said we can only sing songs with positive messages, songs that uplift people and songs that give people joy. And I thought about it, my brain went down through all the staple singers' music. I was like, Yeah, that's what they did. That's what I feel when I listen to their music. And so I was like, wow, okay, so I can actually be like connecting an overall theme or whatever with these songs. And so unfortunately, I only had one positive song, and I gave that song to Mavis. But since then, I've been receiving a lot of positive songs, songs that are in the more um uplifting space and not so heavy, you know, with blues or darkness.

SPEAKER_02: 20:57

What was the song you gave to Mavis?

SPEAKER_00: 20:59

It's called High Note, and she named a record after it. Okay. Called Living on the High Note. And um, and so since then, I think I somehow, through the connection with Mavis, received some kind of shift of my trajectory that was toward receiving songs to have more of a bright message. Because I tend to wake up dark. I wake up grumpy, mean, angry, just mad. I gotta work into it. I gotta work into it. I'm telling you, I ain't ready.

SPEAKER_02: 21:30

Okay, that's an inspiration then.

SPEAKER_00: 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:33

I mean, that's surprised me.

SPEAKER_00: 21:36

No, I'm surprised, you're surprised. Most people I know that have a positive attitude or like some kind of way of moving toward joy, they know some darkness. Most of them I know they know they know darkness well enough to know how to stay the hell away from it.

SPEAKER_02: 21:54

Yeah, yeah. I I love the fact that you, you know, it was through giving this song to Mavis Staples that opened up something for you. So, you know, you were giving the gift, but you you received it. Yeah, you know. Payback, more than payback. All right, great. Let's let's just talk a little bit about I don't quite want to go to the new album yet, even though we just we just mentioned it. I want to just go back to the early part of your career. You mentioned you were cleaning houses, but always always writing music. This whole podcast is based on this concept of an artist's career. Uh from a quote from Brett Anderson of Suede. The London Suede, as they're known in the US. Which is a very boom and bust way to to have a career. It's like you struggle for a long time, then the industry finds you and puts you on a pedestal, and suddenly you have this fame that that you were talking about earlier. Then they get bored, or you make a left turn of a record, and it goes the limelight shifts and you go down. And then you have to kind of find a way to have a renaissance and be comfortable with that. So it's a very sort of roller coaster career. But you did have the struggle for sure. Your first three albums were self-released, you were cleaning houses, as you say, you had to kind of find your way through other musicians. How did you feel through that period? Because you knew you wanted to make music that connects with people.

SPEAKER_00: 23:29

Hmm. I in some sense I felt the same way I feel now.

SPEAKER_02: 23:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

Where it's like, you know, you have this thing inside you want to share, and you have to navigate different ways of being able to reach those who are willing or interested in it, you know. So I don't know if it, you know, unless you reach that place of high fame, like what you're talking about, I don't know if you ever really stopped navigating the the different things that you face as an artist and challenges and things. So yeah, I mean, uh my things then were the the big difference was that when I went to write down my budgets for the week or month, it was more about like making sure bread, this much eggs, this much, you know, if I want peanut butter, if I'm gonna get, you know, the cost of things down to that. Now it's more like, okay, uh how many musicians, how many, you know, what studio, you know, just organizing what I'm able to do with what I have still. But um I'm grateful that that transition has happened and I am able to at least go and make my records and get some of the music that I hear in my head out. So that's definitely a success, and I feel that, and I feel grateful for that. Um I, you know, this T is talking to me. Um, but yeah, I mean, I feel like it's still definitely like I don't work the same jobs, but I work just as much, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 25:39

I'm gonna hit you with another quote now. This is from actually from the PR materials for the album, which is from the New York Times. Valerie June has built a devoted following by ignoring expectations. She is simultaneously rural and cosmopolitan, historically minded and contemporary, idiosyncratic and fashionable, mystical and down to earth. Pretty amazing quote, actually. But have you ignored expectations? How do you get on with the idea of working on a body of work like owls, omens and oracles, the new record? It takes years to do. You have to put, you know, blood, sweat, tears, life and soul into it, and then you put it out in the world. How do you manage your expectations?

SPEAKER_00: 26:29

My own expectations. Well, those have to be managed like in a lot of ways. First, by sitting down and getting still and deciding like, well, what does success for look like for me for this record? You know, what does that look like for me? And just going like song by song, and you know, what is that song? Like, what's the magnet of it, and who do I hope it helps or I hope connects with it. And then performance by performance, like what do I hope this event in this particular city will be like? And living in the space of hope and wonder and magic and imagination, because honestly, the reality usually isn't close to what I see. So I live in the place of like magic, wonder, and adventure and imagination, because that's what got me to create the pieces anyway. And whatever happens outside of it, cool, bring it on. But right here in the sphere of my own personal expectations, what does each little piece that I'm putting out in the world, what magic does it have? And how does that like give you just said giving the song to Mavis, gave back to me? What do I hope to receive from it outside the world's eye, you know? And when I start stepping outside of their eye, then I'm able to stay really focused on like not letting industry matter as much to me, you know, or what is going on in that way in the outside view. And I constantly have to do practices to kind of like bring myself back to that because it's easy to like get taken and swept, and okay, something great happened, I'm going with that. Or something awful happened and I'm going with that. No, okay, I'm gonna go take this walk, I'm gonna go do these affirmations, then I'm gonna do this 10 minutes of yoga, then I'm gonna do 10 minutes of dance, and then all of this adding up to a lifetime. And that's kind of what it's gotta be for me because, like I said, what I see is so colorful, so adventurous that the reality looks gray. I'm just trying to be honest with you. Yeah, like when you're a dreamer and you live in a realm of iridescence, and your mind just is like.

SPEAKER_02: 29:24

Well, you you know, I had Chile Gonzalez on on the show a few episodes ago, and he was saying that you know, he enjoys being delusional because you have to be delusional to create what you want to create. How that goes down beyond that, you can't do too much about that. You can you can try. Hopefully your your label and your manag manager and your PR people and all they're all trying. But yeah, you have to be that little bit delusional about what you're creating in in order to do your best work.

SPEAKER_00: 29:57

Yeah, I think so. I love the idea of dreams and and seeing like many, many variations of rainbows and colors and what can be for humanity and for myself. And so, like, when I live there, I I just feel the need to live there in that space as a creative, way more. I don't know why. I do have these moments where I'm like, okay, reality, but I got swept away by a dandelion growing out the corner of the sidewalk, and they could just have me for a few hours. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's a sidewalk in a dandelion.

SPEAKER_02: 30:42

What what is reality in that scenario? Interesting question. Trust the Path spoke to me. I'd like to hear more about how that song came to you and what you wanted when you say you think about in each individual song. What were you thinking with Trust the Path?

SPEAKER_00: 31:00

The thinking comes after I get the song. And it comes like through the years of having the song in the world and performing the song and sitting with the song myself in different parts of the planet, and so the thinking, you know, when I'm getting the song, I'm just hearing it, I'm just receiving it, I'm just getting it down. But when I go back, I start to say, well, what does it mean? What do you mean for me? What do you mean for my neighbor? What do you mean for my world? What do you mean for the universe? What do you mean for the metaverse? Like the mega multiverse, the thing. It's meaning. So yeah, trust the path is just one of those ones where I like to think of the song as not, you know, it says entering the science of my mind, never wavering, awake and shine. So when I received the song, it was like a deep meditation day for me. And that's the science of your mind. But then from there, it, you know, when I sing that song, I like for the listeners to not hear it like, oh, this singer is singing to me. Hear it more like first person than like if you were your inner voice was telling you to trust the path. You know what that path is. I don't know what the hell that path is for you. I have no idea. I do not know how to tell you what path to trust. But if you hear those words and you hear it from your inside, then you know. You know what to do in every moment. And so that's how I like to listen to that song.

SPEAKER_02: 32:55

Thanks for listening to The Art of Longevity. I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. Please take a moment to rate the show, leave a review on Apple Podcasts if that's where you listen, and do spread the word. Also, you can sign up via the Song Sommelier webpage for our newsletter, artwork, and much more. Back to the conversation. Another one that struck me is superpower. I think because it's got a kind of dub style to it, a little bit different for you, weaving your way through all those those styles, and then the spoken word piece, which uh just I just love. So, how'd you work on that and who collaborated with you on that sort of slightly different style?

SPEAKER_00: 33:38

I worked on it with a musician named DJ Cavum, and I just really love working with him because he created the beat and the music, and I brought in the poem and the lyrics. And the poem came from my book, Maps for the Modern World, that came out in 2021. So it was cool to take something that I had already created in another format and put it with the music that he had provided. And I love that collaboration. I love because I love it because um what you'd said about timelessness and taking things, elements of music from the past, but also things in the present. And I also love that it mixes spoken word with singing, because that's such a nice kind of way to create this coming to my life lately in the last five or six years. Because before that I only received um songs, so now I get poems too. And so I was so joyful about like having a chance to put all of that together in one piece. Like, when does that happen? And it's, you know, we all do have the superpower. I think that song might talk about daffodils and, you know, like flowers, and it goes into um just these things that we have in the on the planet from the owls or whatever birds or trees that can be our superpowers, but also knowing that we have like these little seeds of positive superpowers inside. And and then the poem Blank Page is one of the poems where my grandmother and my mom and everyone, when you're little, they will say, Well, you get a blank page today, what are you gonna do with it? And I'd just be like, Yay! So excited to do something with it. And I think that practice came into my adult life where I do see the rainbows and the imagination and the wonder still. But sometimes when I'm with other adults, I'm like, Do y'all not see all of these colors we get to play with today? Ah! I'm so excited, and they're like, what? But we do get that blank page. I think we get that blank page, and I think having that blank page to create a new day every day is kind of um that's a superpower, and everybody has access to it, so sometimes it's not easy, especially when you wake up meme, but you gotta try.

SPEAKER_02: 36:19

Well, thanks for that. It's it's great to get the context behind the songs. But I mean, superpower is a really cool track.

SPEAKER_00: 36:27

Thank you. We'll see what else we come up with.

SPEAKER_02: 36:30

Um You're gonna be doing some live shows in the US. I don't know when you're planning to come back here. I think you sh hopefully you will come back here soon and play some proper live shows. Are you looking forward to playing any particular songs from the new record live?

SPEAKER_00: 36:47

Yes, I'm looking forward to playing Endless Tree. I'm so looking forward to playing that song because it's for the times, the way that that one came together in my life, but also to me it's just so like it just reminds me of Yiggy Pop or Tina Turner. It's just so like I don't even have a word for what it does, like in the way it shakes me. But live, I'm so ready to sing that song live because it does shake me. It makes me want to like just it gives me so much energy, and I want to show that energy on stages that I'm performing on. I want to just be as free as I can be. And I feel like in many of the performances I've done over the years, most of them, I've been more like learning, and now I'm ready. And I understand that being on stage and being fully in yourself is all I have to do. I used to think that that I was, you know, had to do everything, you know, try to make all the right notes and hit the right and sound just, but no, just feel, just feel. Because when I watch somebody like James Brown perform, yeah, he sounds good, but I really just like that he's showing out, which gives me permission to show out.

SPEAKER_02: 38:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is almost beyond stagecraft, isn't it? I often think you can kind of tell. I mean, in the audience, it's what I call a gig that gives you transcendence. Does it transcend? That's the acid test of a good gig. And normally it will only do that if you know that the performer on stage or the whole band has stopped thinking about the audience to some extent. Stop thinking about what's the what's that person on the third row, you know, doing? What's their problem? But it that's hard to do. So you've been learning that.

SPEAKER_00: 38:58

Yeah, like times maybe 12 or 13 years at least. So now I feel like I don't care. I don't even care. I don't care what you're thinking on the third row. I don't care. Because if you don't like what I'm doing, then fine. You know? I'm fine with that too. If I'm singing about how we can live in a world we can where we can disagree and still live peacefully, and I can't take the fact that you might not like this, then I don't know why I'm singing that.

SPEAKER_02: 39:29

And why are you here? Right. Yeah. So yeah. Oh, I wish I wish I could come to your shows now that you've said that you're ready.

SPEAKER_00: 39:36

I'm ready. So ready.

SPEAKER_02: 39:39

You're gonna we've got to get you over here to do some proper shows. Okay, I've got to talk to you about guitars. I think you love guitars. Uh you this record's been produced by M. Ward. I didn't even know who M. Ward was. This is the thing, you can't know ever you can't know everything. You know, you're Always know much less than you think, even if you think you know music. So I checked this guy out, and it's on certainly on this record, but it goes back over all of your records. This kind of you love a good wig out guitar solo.

SPEAKER_00: 40:17

Yeah, you finally got me there. You might have listened to my music. Yeah, and it's really funny to me because yes, I play banjo, and I think a lot of people see me playing the banjo, and they're like, oh, cool, this black girl playing banjo. Because it's so racially charged. Oh, that's kind of weird to me, but whatever. Um, but honestly, there is nothing like a ripping guitar solo. And now I've started to really kind of love a B3 too. Like a ripping B3. So every instrument from the banjo, the ukulele, the keys to the guitar, they all just have their own kind of personality. And I'm I'm new to the instrument side. I've been hearing the voices and working with voices since I was like probably three. I started to hear songs. But instruments are more, they're like a curiosity to me.

SPEAKER_02: 41:22

Who's playing those wig out solos?

SPEAKER_00: 41:24

Yes, y'all were playing the wig out solos. He can play. I saw him play at New Pro Folk Festival, and he had about four guitars around him, and he was solo, and every single guitar just had its own personality, and I was like, oh my god, I love it. I love his guitar playing. And he also like studied, you could tell he studied blues, and he gets blues, but he um he can play folk, he can play country, he can play whatever. I mean, jazz, anything, but he also gets the root of where. And so that's kind of why I wanted to work with him on this record, because I can't any longer spend time trying to explain to someone why it's okay to rock out and then come play a country song and then throw a beat on top of something and like throw in a spoken word. M was actually like, we gotta have a spoken word on the record. And I was like, Well, I got just the song that I did six months ago with DJ Gavim. So we worked with him on it. So he just got all the worlds, you know, all the Wonderman and Adventure and Imagation space where I am. And I love it when you're working with people who live there, but they're also adults. Like I'm in my 40s. I don't know how old he is, but we're all grown-ass children loving life.

SPEAKER_02: 42:56

Is he coming on the road with you?

SPEAKER_00: 42:58

No, he's in Tokyo right now, and he to wears all over her doing his own.

SPEAKER_02: 43:03

Well, who are gonna who are you gonna get to play his parts?

SPEAKER_00: 43:06

Well, I've learned the solos, so I can play the parts. And a night or up Chinese if you want to hear me do it. But um, I also have a guitar player because he's amazing. His name is Sean Walsh, and he has his own band, the National Reserve. But when you're on stage and you're trying to lead a band and entertain and look amazing, and and I mean all the different things that it takes to be Beyonce, God bless her, or any pop star who can put on a show, because that's a whole nother language, you know, entertainment.

SPEAKER_01: 43:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:44

So I like to have the guys with me, my entire band, they're so talented, and I can lean on them, and I can just get up there and sang and do the split.

SPEAKER_02: 43:53

Yeah, you've got you're working with some really fantastic grade A musicians. Okay, we don't have too much time left, but I want to ask you about your voice. Because you have a unique singing voice. We s call it a signature voice. I'm wondering how did you find it? How did you get comfortable with it and say, this is the way I sing, and I'm gonna bring this as part of my music, and not try and sound like someone else who might be it there in your influences?

SPEAKER_00: 44:28

Yeah, like people came into my life as I was studying music that made me feel comfortable with my voice. People like Tom Waits, or like I said earlier, a friend from high school heard my voice and told me to listen to Karen Dalton. He was like, You gotta hear Karen Dalton. And I listened to it and I was like, wow. Or even the time where I took my one vocal lesson and went to University of Memphis for it, and um it was like an uh after program, and the singer said, heard my voice, and he said, You have got to learn Billy Holiday songs. And there's just like these breaks in her voice. There's like this imperfection in it, and then that also led me to listen to old recordings like Bessie Smith, Mara Rainey, you know, Memphis Many. There's so many types of voices, but we tend to be focused on the mainstream pressed and pretty polished voice sounds. But there's a lot of voices in the world, people. And I love voices that are beautiful and polished, and I also love voices that just make me feel something. Voices that are have an imperfection to them, that have an oddity or curiosity or something peculiar that makes me think, why? Or what? Or some maybe feel something like what's not right. Like, I want to feel something like just have these feelings in a voice. And so that gave me courage when I found singers that also like were fearlessly using their voices. Because before I was just listening to voices that would be on the mainstream radio in my town, or you know, these gorgeous voices, and I was thinking, oh no, I shouldn't. I want to sing, but anytime anyone asked me growing up, what do you want to do? I knew I wanted to be a singer, but I would just tell them, Oh, Dr. Lawyer. I would never tell them that I wanted to be a singer. Because then they'd be like, Let me hear you sing. And they would discover that I sang like I sing. And it might not be for them. And I don't need anybody in that time. Now I don't care. But uh I didn't need anybody discouraging me from my secret little dream happening in my wonderment world of imagination. So some dreams you have to keep to yourself until you're ready to share them.

SPEAKER_02: 47:06

Funny you should say that. I think that's probably one of the secrets of longevity in this business. It's funny, that's what Matt Burninger was saying. So Matt Burninger from the National, singer from the National, doesn't have a natural singing voice. You know, he's got an unusual baritone, and he does what he does with it, and people love it. But he was saying the same thing. He's like a little bit like we talked about your early career, it's because a lot of young creators and musicians listen to this and I guess they want to tap into some of the wisdoms and the lessons of longevity from people like yourself and from Matt. Because it it's really hard at the beginning. Because you kind of do want to make a career out of mus out of your music. So it's hard to enjoy the struggle. You know? That's why it's so difficult. But he was saying, enjoy the struggle. Learn your craft and don't worry about becoming popular or what people say about you until you feel like you've you've learned it. It's so hard though.

SPEAKER_00: 48:10

It is hard, but I just found like visions, uh, like you know how you can make a vision board? Well, online would be people like Mississippi John Hurt, which was in his like 80s and 90s, like close to 90s before anybody gave a damn about him. Elizabeth Caden same. All of these artists who are way older and have been doing what they were doing their whole lives. Elizabeth Cotton wrote that song, Freight Train, one of the most popular folk songs in the history of folk music, at nine years old. And nobody really knew who she was or cared about her until she was in her 80s. And so when I had visions on my vision board of artists like that, then while I was doing all of my day jobs and writing down the numbers of how much it was gonna take to get a to enough to go in a studio to make a record when I gotta get eggs, cheese, bread, all these things, and I can't even make that, then take on another job, then take on another job, then take on another job. And how many years is this gonna take? Oh, we'll multiply that times 20 years and I'll be in the studio. Well, hold that vision because it can happen way faster than you think it will, but keep both visions going at the same time, you know, simultaneously. Like you see both of them, and you keep the day stuff going too. So you're seeing so many worlds all at once, and you're carving it out and you're calling it forth and you're moving toward it. And one of my favorite books is That Alchemist. I read it like every time I got a down because it says as you move toward your dream, your dream moved towards you. And so if I show up eight years old and I'm able to shred the guitar like M. Ward or Elizabeth Gotton or Mississippi John Hurt or Jimi Hendrix, then I done my damn job. You know, ups or downs or whatever might happen. You know?

SPEAKER_02: 50:09

Yeah. It may even happen for you outside of your own lifetime, but that's what it is to be an artist, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00: 50:16

Yeah, but that even goes into like I when I think about that, I always think about dreams for humanity, like the dream of Dr. King and how we still past his lifetime by 50 years are pushing to see that kind of character uh connection with each other on a heart and soul level beyond skin. Um, so it does go beyond your lifetime. Dreams, even the dreams that we're doing, we are doing those so that it's easier for somebody that comes after us. And sometimes it's you can get a little bit like, oh man, I wish that dream would happen for me. But no, just do it. Just open that space up, you know, just be that person who does that.

SPEAKER_02: 51:01

Love that. Thank you. Okay, a couple of last questions. Who are your fans and how do you connect with them?

SPEAKER_00: 51:15

I've been getting asked that question a few times this week. I'm starting to be like, well, who are my fans? Do I have fans? I'll tell you, I have fans, man. I got fans that, you know, while numbers might not grow, my fans stay with me.

SPEAKER_01: 51:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:38

In the sense of, I had a show like a few weeks ago, and after the show, a girl, maybe she was 16, 17, she came up and she had a photo, and it was with me when she was like 10. And she said she was crying, and she was like, I've been with you for all of these years, and I you're still my favorite singer, and I just love your voice. And like, and then I started crying, and then a person behind her was like, I've been with you for 12 years, I've been with you for 16 years. Those are my fans. Yeah, people that like hear my voice somewhere, somehow in the world. They're like driving somewhere, it comes on, or it's something, and they're like, What's that? And they get stuck on it, you know, and they like continue to stay with me. And, you know, they say things like, My mother passed, and I listened to your song Astral Plane, like 20 times every day, and they help me make that transition of her leaving, or things like that. So my fans are ones who understand that the work that I'm doing is medicine ways, that every song has a message, and that these songs are like kind of like mmm, kind of like little medicines or spells for them in their life, and that they can put themselves in the song, like I told you at Trust the Path, that it's not me, it's not even about me. I'm just letting it all come, and it connects with something that is in their realm, and they connect.

SPEAKER_02: 53:13

It's so true. It's so true. You as a listener and a fan, you can give so much of yourself into that song that you did not write.

SPEAKER_01: 53:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 53:24

You know, just listening to it, that's the pleasure for us and the you know the nourishment. I've been exploring the purpose and meaning of the album in today's, you know, song-driven, clip-driven world. And you're you're an album artist. So what does the what does the album mean for you?

SPEAKER_00: 53:45

If I think about an album, it means having more of a more of a soundscape to share moods and feelings and thought forms through songs than just like a snippet with a song. Yeah, even like moving from writing songs to writing books, I got like so much more space when I started to write books because an essay, I could say, you know, in Astral Plane or in Trust the Path or Endless Tree, I got I have three minutes. In a book, I have as many pages as I want to expand what the idea is. And so albums are like having more pages, more chapters, and in a body of work to me. And I just appreciate having that space. But you're right, things are more song-driven now.

SPEAKER_02: 54:47

Well, I'm gonna put you on the spot, so don't worry if it doesn't if it just doesn't work. But if you think about okay, so your four albums that we that we know. So pushing against a stone, order of time. Let's let's go through them. Find a word to describe each one. Start with pushing against a stone.

SPEAKER_00: 55:12

Well, pushing against a stone. It's um a word to describe it. I mean, the first word that came to my mind was mythological. That's the first word that came to my mind, so I'll use their word.

SPEAKER_02: 55:29

Okay. There's a bit of word association. The order of time.

SPEAKER_00: 55:37

That is the physical. Physical. Physics.

SPEAKER_02: 55:42

Okay. Moon and stars?

SPEAKER_00: 55:45

Could even say metaphysics. Well, that's what I'll say for moon and stars. Metaphysics, and then physics for for order of time.

SPEAKER_02: 55:53

All right, coming, let's put this into context now then. Owls, omens, and oracles.

SPEAKER_00: 55:59

Okay. You know, I'm still discovering. So we could say discovery. I'm still discovering what that means because it takes a long time to know, you know, after I'm I get the songs. Some of the songs, even on Alzomans and Oracles, are like 20 years old. Other songs are three years old. Another song might be five years old. So I get the songs, and they're with me for a while, me alone. And then, like, I start to understand somewhat what they mean to me. Then I start to play them with others, and then the meaning changes a little bit, and then my own life changes over the course of two decades. So, what a song like Sweet Things Just For You meant 10 years ago doesn't mean anymore. It means something new to me. So every it's all so changing. And if I look at it on an album basis, then that's even more so changing because it's like you have this collection, and I need years to live with that collection as a collection because the songs came in so many different years, and I put them all together. And what does that mean? That they gravitated to be on one record together. That means God knows what, till years later. I'm like, whoa, now that's what that means.

SPEAKER_02: 57:23

Yeah, I think this is really critical for you because and I've got this thing about this: like, as as fans, we have to have the discipline. If we want to continue to enjoy music, especially album music, we have to have the discipline to listen. Which does take a lot of discipline. Like, put your phone away, put the distractions away, you know, don't worry about emptying the dishwasher until you've spent 45 minutes to listen to a record. And you have to do that over and over again to really appreciate what that album can do for you. And so this is this is my mission is to just get people to stop and listen. Which is so important for your music because that's how to enjoy your music. It's gonna grow on you. And it's gonna get deeper and deeper. It might not hit you the first time if you're distracted.

SPEAKER_00: 58:19

You're right. I don't ever talk about that, but when I listen to a record the first time I listen, I it's just so different each time you listen to it. You start to live in the songs the more you hear them. And you know, like Natalie Merchant's voice, I really loved. As a teenager, I loved her voice because when I listened to her voice, it was very different from the other voices that came on the radio. And when she put out a new record, I would listen to the new record and I'd be like, okay, those are my favorite songs. Choose my favorite songs. Then I listen to the new record again, then I'm like, oh, I have some more favorite songs. Then I'll listen to the record again. I'm like, dang, okay, I like this whole record.

SPEAKER_02: 59:08

You know, I can't just Isn't it wonderful though?

SPEAKER_00: 59:11

Yeah, every time, you know, you listen is stupid.

SPEAKER_02: 59:15

That's a good classic album to you when you're you're discovering the songs at a different time and the ones you thought were the kind of middling album tracks, just they suddenly lift up and they become your favorites for a while, and then you go you like the beginning half, the middle or the end bit, you know. Last three songs of any album for me is what what really does it. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_01: 59:41

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 59:43

Well, have we covered longevity, the art of longevity? I think we we might have done.

SPEAKER_00: 59:49

Yeah, I think we might have that covered.

SPEAKER_02: 59:52

Anything else on your mind?

SPEAKER_00: 59:55

A lot always.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:00

Spell the grey, the moody bit for the day, and we're gonna get on and just enjoy the sunshine. And you've got a great day ahead. I think you're at rough trade later today.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:11

I can't wait. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:13

Um, well, good luck with the new record. Please come to Europe and and play live as soon as you can. And I appreciate everything you've said. I love your music. So people can discover your music at any time. So I'm now on the mission to spread the word. So um yeah, be prepared to have another another fan coming and telling you how much they love your music. So thanks for coming on the Art of Longevity Valerie June.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:39

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.