Her voice is wickedly beautiful! Valerie June, a poetic native of the flatlands of West Tennessee, is a self-taught artistic song bird. Not only does she write beautiful lyrics, but she carries a genuine ambiance within her spirit and within her work that portrays simplicity, passion, and a connection to nature that only poetic lyrics can achieve.
Valerie labels her music as: “Organic Moonshine Roots Music” and I think that perfectly sums up her sound. She is most definitely organic..pure, and essential to the legends and artistic expressions of folk music. She carries a refreshing connection to an eclectic audience as she shares melodies of her roots, her folk, her spirit, and her blues!
“Valerie began to pursue songwriting and performing at the age of 19, when she was part of the husband-and-wife duo, Bella Sun. Perhaps her relatively early marriage wasn’t a surprise: The oldest girl in a strict Christian family of five children, she was domestic as well as ambitious — she pretty much raised her siblings. Says Valerie: “Grandad always feared for my hips because I always had a baby on ’em.”
Valerie’s marriage died but her talent bloomed. Shedding her possessions, this daughter of a brick cleaner from humble Humboldt, Tenn., left the South and traveled up and down the West Coast as a sort of gypsy nightingale, playing for tips on the streets and in bus and subway stations. As interested in “sustainable” technology and natural living as music, she learned to make soap and bath salts, to supplement her income.
Since returning to Memphis, Valerie has been working hard to make ends meet and to make her music the best she can, becoming a mainstay at such events as the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival and the International Folk Alliance Conference, and releasing such albums as “The Way of the Weaping Willow” and “Mountain of Rose Quartz,” recorded at Ardent Studios (Big Star, Replacements, ZZ Top). She’s mastering the banjo and the lap steel guitar, and the new sounds she create vibrate with the tension that occurs when mountain-spring freshness meets rivertown grit. The result is beautiful, generous and authentic — and brimming with gratitude for life, with all its joys and hardships.” ~valeriejune.com
MMM HMMM
Her voice is crazy wonderful! I love it! I read up about her about a month ago and love to listen to her live. I love her hair too!
Be Virtuous and Wise,
Princess Ominah
Shalom,
www.myheartsoulmind.blogspot.com
Lover/Fighter. Artist/Writer. Spiritual/Natural
love her music, speaking
love her music, speaking voice and style. reminds me of my family.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I wonder if any of her songs deal with lynching
In one of the other youtube posts, at the Blue Symposium, in an interview she said that the blues are important because they deal with the history of the south. I wonder if any of her songs deal with lynching, the antebellum period, segregation, etc., because that is definitely apart of the history of the south, and her being a black woman and all, well, you know.
"Knowing love, I will allow all things to come and go... As Rasa would say, 'Life is right in any case.'"
well though that's part of
well though that's part of our history i don't think she has to sing about it if she doesn't want to. a lot of the early blues just dealt with daily situations and human nature. even zora hurston's stories, barry white's music, louie armstrong's music come to mind. life is just life.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A brick cleaners daughter
Her name is new to me and her VIBE so down to earth! Another multitasking woman, making due with her talent. Gotta look for The Way of the Weeping Willow.