Valerie June Shines Bright

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Since the release of her twenty thirteen Dan Arbach produced album Pushing Against the Stone, Valori June has become a critics Darling Rolling Stone praised the Tennessee born soul singer's unique voice as vinegary and slightly oddball, writing that she's equal parts Diana Ross and Dolly Party on AKA. With every subsequent release, Valor June has helped widen the scope of contemporary Americana music. She's one of few African American women working in the genre today. Her unique combination of gospel with appellation folk is a shimmering example of what's possible in the roots music tradition. Broken Record producer Leah Rose caught up with Valerie to talk through her stunny new album. They also talk about Valerie's new collaboration with the legendary Stack singer Carla Thomas and the mystical muse who inspires the chorus of voices that Valerie hears in her head. This is Broken Record Liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Leah Rose and Valerie June. Valerie starts off by singing a song off her brand new album, The Moon and Stars Prescriptions for dreamers. No very is a place for me. Help me to crowl that I'm a leaving See a stream that flows well. Knowing to find battles the key and steals my chattering man. I know there is a harm inside window too saw every dreamer bite each bread is goldey, pathway, lightay, guide, garden to crowl, keep on the sun easide some Collie prayers and sea. Should n see some sitting breathe, some fallen being dead knees. I'd be a food to let it have a name. Earth is a school to shine. Is why you came. Some Collie person Cey is shot nice. I must agree how I find my peace. I'd be food to let it have a name. Earth is a school to shine, is why you came. I know there is a place for me and me too grow that I'm a living See a stream that falls well, knowing too fine, that's a key. It steals my chattering mind. It's beautiful. Thank you. So what inspired that? Did that start with the idea of trying to calm the chattery mind? Well, it started like most of the songs, where like it just came. The first thing I heard was, I know there is a place or me, and then I waited and then the rest started coming and it said helped me to grow that I'm living see, and I was like, whoa, okay, what am I growing for? And then it said a strength to flow well, knowing to fine that holds the key and steals my chattering mom and I was like, oh, okay, I'm in now. So I wanted to know more after that, and that's when it said there's a home inside and it's a window to your soul where every dream abites and each breath is gold, a pathway alight in the God. And I was like, okay, well, I guess I needed to hear that. It's always like the song comes to me and it's medicine that I needed in that moment. It's like they're little gifts for me. And that's why I call it prescriptions for dreamers, because they're like little messages from I don't know, maybe it's my ancestors, or maybe it's God or the Goddess or Buddha or whoever else we wanted, the universe, whatever we want to call it, giving little seeds of messages that I need. You know. In twenty thirteen, I read that you labeled your style organic Moonshine roots music. Does that so hold true for you? I stopped using the name organic Moonshine Roots music because I'm overusing that name. I don't even need a name anymore. At the point that I needed a name, it was I was playing music a lot down in Helena, Arkansas, and Clarkstone, Mississippi, and busking and all around Memphis in that area in the region, and people would hear my music and they would say, what kind of music is that? And I'd say, what kind of music do you think it is? And some people will say blues, and some people would say gospel, some folk, and some he obili music. And I was just like, gosh, I'm just gonna think of a magical name for my music and and let that name be what I call it, because I want it to be able to just be made and not have all of those rules. And I still feel like that, like it's ethereal, it's magical, it's it's what do we call music. It's really really hard for musicians unless they're in a pure form and studying that. Yeah, And it seems like the only place those labels really matter are you know, when you're being classified on Spotify in a certain playlist or even in like an old school record store where you have to be within a certain genre. But besides that, it's like it's what you know, it doesn't even really matter. Yeah, And I find that many listeners they don't much need the label title for the genre or whatever. They like the song and it feels good tunes, they respond to it, and that's the whole area is two. And it's almost even better because if it's a song, if it's somebody who has like a clear parameter, like you know, you hear people say I like everything but country music. M And it's almost better because then if you don't know what it is, you can like it and then you find out, oh no, it's actually country music. Yeah, because I guarantee you that for people who do say that, because I used to say that, Like as a teenager, I would say, I like everything but country music. But I loved country music because I like old country music. What I didn't like was modern, polished country music. And I like the country music that came out of my grandmother's church, which was just a bunch of old black folks singing at Highway forty five bypassed Church of Christ and singing with their Southern accents as loud as they could with no instruments and had a twine. And that's what I was writing, son, So you're probably still drawn to that. Oh yeah, voices in the pure raw form, and especially voices that are imperfect. I love that. If a voice breaks or cracks or crib quivers, I love that. So who are some artists that you love who have that characteristic with their voice? Karen Dalton has it with her voice. It's such an imperfectly perfect voice. Billy Holliday's voices like that, they have these breaks, Eddie James or here points where her voice has this rust on it. It's just rusty, like a galvanized ten that's been out in the sun in front of a trailer all day and for years and years and years. So voices that have that to it, you know, on a ball she sang with her husband ec Ec and on a ball her voice is so imperfect. Memphis Manny Best c Smith and my Rainy, any of the old sounds. When you listen to that, it doesn't sound clear and perfect all the way through. You know, there are points where you just hear raw emotion. And then how did you settle on your sound? Was there a certain point when you were just starting to play music where you felt like you had to pick a lean in a way. Did you experiment a little bit at first? Well, this is a not a ending question, it's an ever present question. And basically what I did was I was in a band went after I moved to Memphis, and I sang only. I didn't play any instruments. But when the band broke up, I was just singing. And I worked really hard building a following for this band, and people would be like, where are you going to play? What's going on? When's the next show? And it was over and I was like, you know what, I never want to experience this again in my life. I want to be able to accompany myself and do shows just me with an instrument, no matter what. And so my grandfather, when I was fourteen, he'd given me a guitar and I told him I promised him that I'd learned to play, but I never did. So I was in my early twenties and when the band broke up and I said, well, I might have to sit down and learn how to play this guitar, and so I got a chord book. And when you get a chord book, they show folk songs in their crowdad song which I was raised don Tom Dooley and the songs like that. So you learn the root, you learn the basic chords, you learn the foundation of music. And everyone who's anybody had to do that, from you know, John Herd to Hendrix. It didn't matter what style you play. I had to learn that route. And so when I started to explore even further, because the books only have twenty or so pages, I was like, I want to learn more songs more. So that's when musicians that were around me, because as a singer, I had a bunch of musicians around me, they'd be like, listen to this, listen to the listening to these Memphis musicians, and I've gravitated towards things that reminded me of what I was raised on. And I was raised on like just southern gospel and country and folk and blues and R and B and stuff. And so when I heard the Carter family, those songs were accompanied by guitar, but they were the same songs that I was raised singing a cappella in the church. So it blew my mind to hear them play that way, because it was against the rules of the church to have instruments in the church. You'd go to hell for that. And so I was just kind to like, well, I want to learn how to play these songs with and with the instrument. I know how to sing them. I know a thousand songs. The books full of like songbooks at church, they're about nine hundred two a thousand songs in there. So I had all of these melodies and lyrics and things floating around my head, and I just took them and started putting them to basic chords and creating my versions of them. And so the songs have always just told me what to do. They're the boss. If they want to be a blue song, they're a blue song. If they want to be a country song, they're a country song. If they want to be a rock and roll song or something I want to be on your Mind or Astraplane, which is kind of dreamy stuff, then they'll be that. They're the boss. I get told what to do basically, Well, that's nice because then you don't have to wrestle with it in your head. It sort of takes some pressure off it does. The hardest part is when a song tells you what it wants, but you can't afford to do it. So you started playing guitar in your early twenties, you said, and then you switched over to banjo. Was that a hard transition to make? Well, like the guitar being given to me by my grandfather, my first banjo was given to me, and I was like, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? Isn't it way more difficult to play banjo than a guitar? I think it is. Yeah, it is if you want to play it in a traditional way. Otherwise, if you play it like I play it, which is whatever way you feel like it, then you just make it your own. But if I'm trying to like go by the book on the banjo, yeah, there's no comparison to the going by the book on the guitar versus banjo. But yeah, it was given to me, and like the guitar, I let us sit around and collect us for a few years, and then it started calling me. It said, I have a song. I have a song. And so the first time I sat with it was just writing a song. I think I could write a song on almost anything that makes sound, but actually knowing how to play that instrument up and down. That's the life's work for me, and I work on that every day now now that I have this life where I don't have to get up and go work three jobs. It's what I do. Do you take lessons or are you completely self taught? Self talk? Do you do like YouTube tutorials or do you just sit with the instrument and figure it out. When I want to learn a cover song, I'll watch videos on it on YouTube. And I think that's so amazing about this technology in our time that we can learn anything we want to learn. And I think that contributes to artists not having limited limits as far as what they create. It being inspiration from artists from India or Africa, Ireland, you know, you can just go all the way into Brazilian music or anything you want to learn, right at the click of a finger tip, you know, on a button. So I lean on the the internet quite a bit, and and I kind of trust my ear some now, but really I just trust my ear with singing. So sometimes I can pick out a part and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm proud of myself because when I first started in my early twenties, I could not tell you what a saxophone was or a berry sex compared to any of the other horns. The only one I really knew was blaring saxophone clearly and trumpet if trumpet is my favorite arm. But I couldn't distinguish which was what in music. I listened to music as a whole versus getting inside of it and being able to say that, right there is the base, and then underneath that came this, and under behind that came that. And so I had to learn how to hear like a musician, and I'm still learning that. Can you now write music or can you direct players to play certain parts that you hear in your head? Yes, that is how I do the songs. I can't write music, but I humm it, you know, And I'll just be like, Okay, what I hear in my head, I know is a horn and it goes like this Dada adopted data, do do do do, And I'll just be like, that's what the horn is supposed to do. And you're a horn players, so how can you translate that? Can do the drum part and the bass and guitar everything, the feel of it. But I'm not so good at drums. I'm getting better at that, but I'm not so good at that. But with my songs, there's all the layers of voices because I hear it in voices. So I'll just sing the home like the line and put that in there and be like, this is what I hear as a horn or whatever. And a lot of times, like say, working with Jack, I would say, I hear something that's going and it's a drum, and we will like get the drummer to play that, you know, just get them to play that part. And so that makes it easier because when I first started, I would hear it and I would know how to talk to the musicians because I was intimidated because they knew real coordinames like eat sharp flat blood ever right right right, I want to talk about it's so intimidating. Da da da da, And got got Google with the baby talks. So is it Does it usually happen that the melody comes first to you? Or do the voices? Do you hear the voices first and then you put a melody under the voices. It's melodies and then the words start to morph. And sometimes I don't even get words, Like it'll just stay like a chant almost, you know, so it'll just stay at home and a chant. And I really feel like sometimes I actually need a producer to be like, nope, don't put that voice down, Like you already put down five hundreds, so like that's enough voices. Like as soon as one comes in, another one comes in, another one comes It's like a symphony or something to where do you think that comes from hearing a chorus of voices in your head? I don't know, but it does. It's like such an iridescent thing to me. Like it's like I love it and I'm glad I get to go there, and I want to take my listeners there, Like it's a space where we can walk in there and we can sit there and we can be in it and let the voices swirl around it. How often does the final product reflect what you first heard in your head? Do you ever actually get there? I never do ever, And that can be a little bit fresh, But also at the same time, I'm marvel at whatever it is. It's bigger than us. We're like always just inspired by something bigger, and you know, it's more real in the dream in the voice that I heard on my head. If I can live there, then I don't get frustrated because it's never the same as what I heard in my head. It always comes out different, and sometimes it comes out better. That's good. Yeah, So at least there's that. Yeah, so he does. It happens all kinds of ways. It must be frustrating if you don't have the language to express what you're hearing. You're trying to put this thing together that only you're hearing. And if you're working with someone like Jack Splash, how do you communicate that to him? Do you play him samples of other music? Do you just sort of like sit and hum in front of him? Which does sound funny, didn't it. Yes, I have to be working with someone that I feel comfortable enough to sing the baby talk too. And Jack is certainly a person like that because he makes everyone feel so safe and comfortable with their form of creativity. And then also, yes, I would play him like samples of things, and he would play me samples of things, just to be sure that what I describe to him is the same as what he's receiving. Because when you're in the room with another person and y'are getting ready to make music. You could say, play a drum role that sounds cloudy like a thunder like the back rolls of thundery drums on some of the t Rex stuff that Tony Visconi produced, but they might hear that differently, So how you land at it, It's just like there's got to be something that's marvelously bigger than you. That God's that. Yes, I don't know what to call it, but maybe the music, mystical music music, there's something that's guiding the whole process, a little fairy coming and guiden it to make sure that everyone hears the song the right way. Do you ever worry that you're gonna get cut off from that source? No, I don't. I don't worry because it's been with me since I was a little kid, like since before I can remember, and I know that, you know, there are other forms of art that I love and I do like I draw, and I write poems, and I don't just hear the singing voice. Sometimes I hear speaking voice where it'll be like tips reading me a poem. So I try not to limit it. And one of the girls of my life is one of the people I worked with. Who I thought was such a brilliant person was Richard Swift. Because he was he would paint, he would produce, he would play every single instru man and on something. I mean, he just he loves photography. He didn't have like a limit to his creativity. And a lot of musicians are creative outside of music. Many of them paint like I think Amanda Shires does, and Margot Price, my Joan Baiaz, yeah, Joan Bayaz and Johnny Mitchell. As long as you're just staying in the flow and keeping that creativity, the voice will always come back around. It'll always come back. We'll be back with Valerie June and le A Rose. After the break, We're back with more from Valerie June. You took four years between the last album and this album. Was there some sort of pivotal moment where you thought, Okay, I'm ready to start this whole creative cycle over again. No, I don't really stop four years. That record came out in March twenty seventeen, and then I tour for three years and then we hit coronavirus last year, so that was me stopping. But I really don't stop. What I do is I just tour. I tour on a record for a long time, which in the if you can bless you're coming to shows, then you would think, yeah, what's thou doing? You know? But it was really something to be home actually, because that's been more days gone and I do it home. Is it harder for you to rate when you're on the road. No. I usually write no matter what. Songs come in dream so I write sometimes in my sleep, like on this record, Why the Bright Stars Glow came in a dream. So I just my biggest thing is just to be open to the song whenever the song wants to come, and ready to capture it in some form on my cell phone or rolling over and scribbling it down or whatever it is. While I'm cooking. Sometimes the songs will come. I'll have to be like I gotta kick. I'm getting a song that got to capture just to the little snippet and I can go back later and continue with it or whatever. So it sounds like it almost comes when you're focused on something else. Oh yeah, yeah. If I sit down and try to write a song, it's over. I cannot I mean I can do it. If I have a songwriting session with someone and we say we're going to write a song, but even then it's hard. I do not like it. I want to learn how to like it. I want to learn how to write songs about blue cars when someone asked me to write a song about a blue car. But yeah, Like, the hardest part about the writing and stuff is that it's just making a record, is getting in the studio with the musicians and having the time and knowing the right producer. Like with this producer search, I met so many amazing producers that I loved, And that alone took about six months to Nashville and different cities and heaving tea and trying a little demo with someone and seeing how it felt and if they were right for these particular songs and stuff. So all of that stuff takes time. But the writing of the actual song, that song where I'm able to play just acoustic guitar and sang it no matter what layer of production I put on it, that comes when it wants to. So you settled on Jack Splash for the new album. He's worked with Kendrick Lamarge on Legend Alicia Keys. What was it about his sensibility that you really liked? I loved working with Jack because he's like a kaleidoscope in the way he appreciates music and art, and I just wanted to be working with someone who saw the world magically and like, similar to what I described about Richard, had no limit to their appreciation of whatever it is that makes us creative, whatever the thing is, just loves and appreciates it, from fashion to art in his house, to books in the studio to everything. Just is filled with inspiring moments no matter where you look in his space. So I just wanted to work with him because of that. You want to work with people that you feel like you're going to ask him to your tribe and there yet to be a part of your family, because it's such a vulnerable process. It is thinking baby talked to just anybody. No, it doesn't work. Even around the house with my boyfriend, he's like, is it over again? You just thank the same thing like again and again for like freaking hour. You're like, thanks for the encouragement. Now, he's super sweet. He produced the last record. But I do know that living in a tiny New York apartment and the same thing I'm getting again can drive anybody crazy. But the person's doing it did you assemble some sort of audio moodboard for the new album. Did you go in there with a set of sounds that you played for Jack? I created a document and it had songs that inspired so he could get the vibe that I was trying to create with the song. And then it also had like quotes and poems so that he would be in the headspace for what I was trying to create. And it also had words. Do you remember what any of those words were? Yeah, let's see cinematic. That was a word that I wanted it to be. And Oh, I loved what he'd worked on with Tanking the Bangas, especially the song Colors Change and the vintage sounds and the reverb on Teenage Love Affair that he did with Delicia Keys, and the raspiness of the drum song Full for You that he did with Celo. So I went through everything he did and I extracted like things that I knew I was already hearing all my songs, and just so he could know in relation to stuff he's already done, like sounds that he's already captured that I love that I'm like, this is the one that has to be on that particular song. Too, that feel or that reverb or that tone or whatever. So that and then oddn't dreamy sounds? I said, I want some vibraphones, some xylophones, some birds, some chimes, some planes, harps. I was just like I was going name it, all of it. And then the words are ethereal, dreamy, magical, otherworldly, flowing, multi era, multi genre, soul, heart colors, consciousness, adventurous, stimmering, space, gozong. I mean, the man probably thought I was freaking nuts. Let's talk through some of the songs. Is there anything in particular, any song that you want to start with or you want to break down for us. We can start with calling me a fools with Carla Thomas. Yeah, oh my goodness, how did that happen? So? I lived in Memphis for ten years and I'd sing Carla all around and people would be like, she doesn't really play much anymore or go out, and I didn't feel like she was someone that I could just walk up to and approach. So I reached out to Boo Mitchell, who runs Royal Studios, which is Willie Mitchell's studio, and I said, Boo, do you know how we can get in touch with Carla because I got a song and I would love to have her to sing on it, and he was like yep, and he got me in touch with her sister, the niece, and Vanisim got me in touch with Carla because Carla doesn't have a phone, and so she lives in a different like her time, and everything is just so great. It's so different, and so Boo was able to organize that for me and I went into his studio and we had we met it about ten am and we did the song and then after that we hung out till about twelve am. We went to see a show in Memphis. So we didn't have any of this planned either. It was just like kids in college or something goring and like, let's do this now, let's do that now. Having one and talking and listening to stories about Rufus times, it was amazing. Oh she is, she's a star. So what did you ask her or do you remember anything specific that you wanted to know? Once you all were out and comfortable and talking, I really just listened because she has so many stories and I think that, I mean, I hope that people start to interview her to get some of these stories captured, because she was there, you know, she was with Otis. I did ask her about that. I was like, what was it like? Yeah, in the room with Otis. She just I mean, it was as powerful and magical as you could have thought it would be. And she has countless stories. Well, that's cool. That sounds like such an amazing experience it was. Is it important for you to record music in Memphis and using Memphis players and just sort of like carrying on a Tennessee tradition. I think unconsciously it is because with everything I've done, there's been some home in it. Like my last record, my father and my brothers were on it, and you know, just I feel like I've always got to have home in what I'm doing. Yeah, talk a little bit about your household growing up, what you learned about music as a young girl, and how your family sort of came together and how music was a part of the family. Well, I have two brothers and two sisters, and I'm the oldest girl. So we were always singing around the house, being that our church was a church where no instruments, only voices, and we all knew as many songs as I told you earlier, And so if somebody started a song, then everybody else would just jump in on it, you know, and harmonize and started doing that part while we were on our way to school or working in the yard, or cleaning up the dishes after making dinner. I mean, it was like the sound of music and a lot of ways, you know, because if somebody started a song, you won't gunning in until we sang the hell out him. And so my mom and dad they My father was a music promoter, and he also had a construction business, which helped him on the times when the music business wasn't as prosperous, and we all helped in his businesses. We worked in all his businesses. So I learned a lot about promoting music from being with him, and I think he was one of the greatest inspirations for me when I moved to Memphis, being able to share my music and promote it with people, like hanging flowers on poles and making up these flowers and handing them out and be like, come to my show, gum, fearlessly promoting myself. I was able to do that, and I think that all my brothers, insists, got a little bit of that hustle from being a part of my parents' businesses, and you know, it was a good, good time singing with them. Do you think being the oldest of five kids does that give you sort of like an inborn confidence? Do you think there's something to birth order and the way that people hold themselves in the world. My friend, one of my best friends, she says that theory is my brother is one brother older than me and then all the rest. But what I found is that it makes me bossy. I have to like tell myself sometimes like nope, nope, just stop, don't be bossy, because I'm really bossy. I get that though, because you have a little a little army of people under you and you need to order them around. Yeah. So that's the biggest thing, because confidence is something I totally have had to work on over years of my life. Steel dudes, do you remember the first time you got up and played in front of people? I do this. Usually what would happen is at the holidays, we'd all get together during the you know, say it was Christmas. During the day, I'd say to my siblings, let's have a show. Let's put on a show. And so after we'd opened the presents and everyone at eaton then we'd say, Grant and all my hunts and uncles and all the kids, we're gonna do a show. And we'd go to the living room and we would get in front of everybody and we singing like we were Jackson five, and of course everybody else felt the infectious nature of music and they join in. So the whole family would just be getting down at the holidays. So that was me and my brothers and sisters promoting little shows in the family. And then in the fourth grade, mister Wallace in Humboldt, where I went to elementary school, we were stud He had a witty Guthrie and I love the song this Land is Yerland. And I said, mister Wallace, when we come back after lunch, can I get in front of the class and sang this Land is yeer Land? And he was like can you sing? I was like yeah, and I said, yeah, I can do it. So he let me get up and sing it. And I don't think they much like my voice, but I did it. Anyway. You have to be confident to do that. Yeah, it didn't stop me. You know, they might have called me a fool, but I went and did it. And I always wanted to sing, like you know, in high school, they'll choose the best singer to sing the national anthem. Oh, I really wanted to do it, but I knew I didn't have the voice that was pleasing to everyone. So did you do theater and stuff like that in high school? Um? No, I was a cheerleader and then I became a captain of the cheerleading squads. So that was me being a bossy person. Bossiness just running the comment would you do like flips and everything? Like were people throwing you up in the air. I was too heavy for that. I was a base I would throw people up. It was fun. I really enjoyed it. And I think I'm kind of like a cheerleader now for other musicians in some ways, you know, Like I did a play list recently. It's young, gifted and black, and it's just all these musicians that we have around us that are multi genre, that are amazing that you know, we need to celebrate who they are and just like lift everyone up, just keep everyone inspired to dream. We'll have more Valerie Leo Rose. After a quick break, we're back with Valerie June singing an acoustic version of her song Astral playing. What is there a lie? You haven't shot, You can't touch a looking glass, You can't only shine you so much. If you follow the sun slowly the standy, don't rush, then the day will come when you ready, Just try. You'd be dancing on the astral plane and holy water cleansing rain flowing through the stratosphere. Blind, but yet to see so clear? Where is there a way for you to shine out? Fear you from other words, but you can't see He would keep shoot here dancing on the astral bline and only water cleansing, rain flooding through the stratosphere blind, be yet to see shawcliff dancing on the astral blind and only water cleansing, raining flowing through the stratosphere blind, be yet to see saw clear? Blind, yet to see blind, be yet to see blind, be yet to see blind, be yet to see side clear? Is there a way for you to give it? You're all you dreaming, and dream a street of things, things great, things small, dancing on the astral fly and all the water cleansing, rain and flooding through the stratosphere blinder, yet to see shark clear, dancing on the astra flind and know the water cleansing rain, floating through the stratosphere. Blind be at to see shark clear blind be at you see blind yet you see blind be yet you see blind me at you see shine clear? Well, there is a light that you haven't shot, you can't touch m It's so beautiful. It always reminds me that you know of the light that I came to be in the world. So hopefully it'll do that for other people too. And it almost feels like you're trying to protect that light in the song most definitely. That's why dreamers neat prescriptions for protection of the loving kindness and the sweetness of their hearts and the dreams that they want to share. A lot of the imagery is, you know, floating above the earth, blind but you can see. Do you feel like you need that to protect yourself from from the harsh reality of the world. Yeah, But I think at the same time what's happened is that I understand the blues and the happiness of it and the joy of it, and the processing of the harshness and like not running away from it but walking right through it and looking at the world and sending the astral world within this physical world and it's all here, and how wondrous and amazing all of that is just being here on earth and the magic of us being here. I mean we have like trees, for example, we can hug. This stuff is really a gift, you know, the full moon tonight, the stars, all of these things. I saw three shooting stars the night I finished working with Chat on this record. And just like those things, you don't have to go far to see what I would call something bigger than you. And some people might call it God or something else, but I call it just beautiful and so you don't have to go far for it. How have you because you faced a lot of adversity in your life. There's a period of time when you were very sick for a number of years, how have you been able to get through seriously trying times like just having a practice of light and that being danced, that being music, baths, poem, joga mantras. Like some days I just have to say again and again to myself all day from the moment I get up, thank you for this life, Thank you for this life, Thank you for this life. And like just I have to say that again and again and again, because you know, I mean there are days when I just don't feel good, like physically, like being dealing with the diabetes. It's like every day it's a different day. Like some days I feel like I have the energy for the world and other days I don't, And I just have to work on that, and I have to be in it and not fight it and just be like, Okay, I see the body doesn't want to do that much today, but I'm gonna gently tell it to dance to this swamp Talk song real quick, you know. So you just meet it where it is every day, just like with the voice. Sometimes the voice is able to hit super high notes and then sometimes it sounds like, oh, like it in the morning when you first wake up. You meet it where it is until it's ready to be beautiful and clear, like Allison Kraus at the end of the day in the morning and Salent Woof at the end of the day Allison Kraft. Do you look back at old songs, listen to lyrics and think, Wow, I've come a long way, or I completely don't agree with that whatever I was saying wherever I was back then, I've moved on. Usually don't look back much, but when I do, like when something makes me look back, Like, for example, with the song Shotguns, someone wanted me to be on a podcast dealing with murder ballots, and there was a time in my life where I did study murder ballots. But I felt like, after all the things that happened in our nation with you know, gun violence and things, and even in African American communities, how we struggle with that, that I didn't want to sing that song ever anymore. It can be on a record, but I just don't feel like, I feel like, you know, when a song is right for a time and when it needs to just like that came out and it's out, and that's that. It doesn't need to go. If people want to hear it, they could put the record on. You know. I was wondering how you felt about working women blues. I ain't fit to be no mother, ain't fit to be no wife. If that's something that still holds for you, or if that's just not even really a proclamation from yourself, that's just part of the song. It's part of the song, and it's really just dealing with like women feeling free enough to be what they want to be. And I have to find any kind of set way to be. But if I look at it personally, I tried to be a why twice they didn't work, So maybe I think maybe that's one of the imprimnation sounds. Wish you wouldn't because Lord knows I love a good love story. But yeah, Madden are not getting married. I think I missed it up a couple of times. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I wish you so much luck with the new album super exciting. I hope you're able to get out and perform once everything hopefully writes itself in the world. Thank you, I hope so thanks to Valerie June for singing and sharing her journey with us. Valerie put together a playlist for us of her favorite imperfect voices. You can find a link to it an episode description, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts of new and old episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafe, Our executive producer is Mio. Label Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. And if you liked the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcastle our theme music Spectkenny Beats, I'm justin Richmond Peace