Tennessee native Valerie June learned to sing by listening closely to all the voices in local Church of Christ congregations — first in a predominantly black church and later in a mostly white church. But it was another voice that sang “Workin’ Woman Blues” to...
Valerie June was a bundle of endearing eccentricities when she performed at the Highline Ballroom on Friday night. Between songs, with a mixture of candor and caginess, she offered glimpses of her past and present as leisurely shaggy dog stories, told in her rural Tennessee...
Short of seeing her live and in person, this is the best way to encounter Valerie June's heartfelt sound. Her new album Pushin' Against a Stone is terrific, but when I first heard that voice unadorned, I was hooked. The same may happen to you. https://youtu.be/iBDrTHCSWDc...
Valerie June talks about her southern roots and her desire to be free from social constraints, as we see in her song, "No Draws Blues." Watch more here. ...
If you have not yet encountered the music of Valerie June, we recommend you clean out your basement, stock up on candles and get yer waders on. Because–although she may not be popping up in your face every 5 minutes with snapchats, factoids and controversial...
“I ain’t fit to be no mother / I ain’t fit to be no wife / I’ve been working like a man y’all / I’ve been working all my life.” Quite a weighty, though supremely genuine and honest, way to initiate an album. On Pushin’...
Valerie June, the country-and-blues-ish musician, was exploring the vintage stringed-instrument store and repair shop RetroFret — a sprawling series of rooms accessible to the public only through a secret-feeling rooftop garden, which was itself up a flight of stairs and behind a nondescript silver door...
Memphis-bred singer-songwriter Valerie June is having a long-gestating, hard-earned moment. June's debut album, Pushin' Against a Stone, was released overseas in May but was introduced to U.S. audiences last week in a "First Listen" feature on the website for National Public Radio, with an accompanying...
“Pushin’ Against a Stone,” the remarkable debut by Valerie June, is the sound of an artist who carries the weight of the world in her voice but has never forgotten her roots. June grew up in Tennessee but makes music that’s hardly tethered to time,...
Though Valerie June no longer lives in Tennessee, her Southern roots shine through on her debut album, Pushin' Against a Stone. The spare, stunning track "Shotgun," a murder ballad that drips with raw emotion (listen to it below), anchors her first LP with her razor-sharp...