Her follow-up to 2013’s sublime Pushin’ Against A Stone finds Valerie June expanding her unique blend of blues, soul and mountain music to create a distinctive hybrid in which past and future coalesce with gentle power. The opening blues spiritual “Long Lonely Road”, for instance,...
Although my dad was one of the friendliest people I’ve ever known, his life seemed to be fully focused on his family and his businesses. My father had two companies: Music Makers Productions, where he promoted the likes of Prince and Bobby Womack, and Hockett...
Valerie June has been making her distinct blend of plaintive folk traditionals, Southern soul, and country blues for more than a decade, but it wasn’t until her 2013 breakthrough Pushin’ Against A Stone that she established herself as one of the most promising roots synthesizers...
"As of this writing, I am sixty-one years old in chronology," the novelist Madeleine L'Engle once mused. "But I am not an isolated, chronological numerical statistic. I am sixty-one, and I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five, and...
"As of this writing, I am sixty-one years old in chronology," the novelist Madeleine L'Engle once mused. "But I am not an isolated, chronological numerical statistic. I am sixty-one, and I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five, and...
In the apartment buildings of New York City, there is no shortage of crazy cat ladies. Valerie June isn’t one of them, but she does have her own obsession. “I am the crazy plant lady,” she says. The Tennessee native’s Brooklyn brownstone is a veritable...
Valerie June’s major label debut Pushin’ Against a Stone was hailed as a one of the best albums of 2013, and her follow-up The Order of Time carries and expands the weight of that acclaim. The Order of Timecontinues June’s fusion of a diverse set...
Growing up in Humboldt, Tennessee, singer-songwriter Valerie June was surrounded by voices. June's family attended the Church of Christ, a denomination whose churches highlight worship through song. But some, like June's, forbid instruments. So the music is all acapella. It's fitting, then, that when June writes songs...
Brooklyn singer-songwriter Valerie June has one of those voices that floats out of the ether, a stunning yet comforting presence that offers up a healing salve in times of distress. It would be haunting if it wasn't so soothing, betraying a timeless feel and a...
“I’m bound to leave you waiting by the front door,” Valerie June sings midway through her sophomore effort, The Order of Time. It’s hard not to think of Bob Dylan standin’ in the doorway cryin’, or the singers of countless other lovin’-and-leavin’ country-blues songs. But...