Valerie June has opened her deepest channel yet to create her 4th studio album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles. The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter & 3-time Americana Music Honors & Awards nominee weaves fresh medicinal downloads of love, sweetness, goodness, & joy together w/songs that have flowed through her for many years. Halfway through a decade of immense and rapid global change, she asserts a multidimensional Blackness steeped in laughter, truth, magic, delight, & interdependence. The opening track & 1st single, “Joy, Joy!”, gives us an irresistible &playful invitation to surrender to the light always available in our souls. This album is a radical statement to break with the skepticism, surveillance & doom scrolling to let yourself celebrate your aliveness. Connect, weep, change, open. Rooted in the belief that what we focus on is what we manifest, Valerie June dreams a songpath forward that leaves no one behind. She has been softening & clarifying her sound since the 2013 release of Pushin’ Against A Stone. From the Kennedy Center and opening for The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park to supporting Tyler Childers, Trevor Hall, Brandi Carlile, Gary Clark Jr., & John Prine, she offers us a root system spanning Earth’s magma core to the cosmos. This newest work shows her own spiritual growth, her deepening, the opening of ancestral channels into both her glorious voice and her tender lyrics. Valerie is not alone in crafting this sacred field for the contemplation of love and being human. Her dynamic & distinct voice centers an incredible circle of collaborators, including producer M. Ward and special guests Blind Boys of Alabama, Norah Jones, & DJ Cavem Moetavation. In this vast realm, we can follow June’s singular sound, a north star as steady and undeniable as any true love story, telling us to “trust the path.” She is inviting us out of the small boxes that keep us apart from each other, her music creating a space where we are already together, already one. She wants everyone who listens to this music to want to be alive, to love, co-creating a future together. Mavis Staples, Newport Folk Festival, and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival were the auspicious forces that led June & Ward to record 14 original songs at 64 Sound in Los Angeles. Backstage is where the magic happens. Musicians often find themselves traveling to similar festivals. With a spirit of togetherness circling her at every turn, in summer/fall 2023, June joined Ward for spontaneous guest appearances during his sets at Newport Folk Festival & Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, setting the plan in motion to work together in the studio. The rest is an adventure for you to listen, hear, feel and share. This album, not unlike Valerie herself, is not made for one…this art is made for all.
I had the honor of spending a little time chatting with Valerie ahead of her May 30th show at the Majestic Theater. We talk about her amazing band and what is bound to take place once they all get thinGs going. It’s gonna be a rockin’ and rollin’ time it sure sounds like and video evidence on the interwebs proves it. We go for a stroll through the new album ‘Owls, Omens and Oracles’ and how it made its way into the world and we specifically call out the ever-so-upbeat tune ‘Joy Joy’ so the feelings can slide off onto all of us. I felt like it was important to do a compare and contrast between her recent time at the Grand Ole Opry and the time before – you can hear the deeper feelings/emotions she felt this time around. Valerie is no stranger to the give back, so I make sure to let her talk about being a supporter of the arts in education and of course, she let’s us know which tune is kinda sorta her fav. Truly a star in our universe, the genreless and brilliant, Valerie June.
