VALERIE JUNE
FULFILLS HER CREATIVE VISION WITH ‘THE ORDER OF TIME’
There’s been a certain sound rattling around Valerie June’s brain for a long time. “It’s like I hear a symphony in my head, but it’s only voices,” she says. “That’s how I get the songs: I hear the voices and then go from there.”
June’s forthcoming album, “The Order of Time,” marks her second fulllength since signing with Concord Music Group, and the new record adds to those voices with an expansive production, including strings and horns.
“Everything you hear on the album has always been bouncing around in my head,” says June, a Jackson native and longtime Memphis resident, now based in New York City. “It’s just a matter of finally having the time and resources to fully realize and express that. That’s the biggest growth I’ve experienced: getting to the place where I can finally afford to be me.”
Last Friday, ahead of the album’s March 10 release, June headlined a homecoming show at the Hi-Tone Café. She performed with her road band along with a local horn section (led by saxophonist Hope Clayburn). Her brother Patrick Hockett opened.
June, who moved East seven years ago, began work on the album last year at a studio in rural Vermont, with producer Matt Marinelli, musicians including pianist Pete Remm and guitarist Andy Macleod, and name guests like Norah Jones. “We did it in Vermont, and it’s a pretty New York crowd playing on the record,” says June. “But the music itself has nothing to do with the location of my body. Those songs, and those voices in my head, they come to me wherever I am in the world.”
Her earlier self-financed indie records were usually stripped-down affairs, cut quickly. “I remember once (Memphis’) Ardent Studios giving me free studio time for one day and I made a record by myself,” says June. “With ‘The Order of Time’, I had the luxury of time and the opportunity to hire people to arrange horns and strings. I had a budget to actually make a real record. You can hear that bigger sound in your head for a long time, but once you can afford to do it, it’s really a satisfying feeling.”
“The Order of Time” also brought June back to her hometown of Jackson, with several of her family members adding their vocals to the album’s centerpiece, “Shake Down.” “I grew up going to the Church of Christ, so everybody in my family sang. We came to Tennessee to record my brothers singing on that track. We packed up all the gear and set up in my family’s living room. My dad was listening and getting ready to leave the room, but we said, ‘Hold on,’ and made him sing, too.”
Not long after that, in November, Jackson’s father became gravely ill. “All of us went home and went to the hospital, and we all held hands around him and we sang. We sang songs that we knew growing up. We sang to him for two hours, and he slipped … he slipped away and went into the next phase,” she recalls.
“I didn’t realize until that moment that I’m from a deep musical family. People would ask me, ‘Are you from a musical family?’ I always thought a musical family was like the Carter Family where everyone picks up an instruments and plays. But we were musical. I took it all for granted until I realized I am from a singing family. It made me proud.”
After taking much of 2016 off from the road to make the new record, June is back to her tireless touring schedule — one that’s seen her average roughly 200 live dates a year. That roadwork has allowed June to expand and broaden her audience exponentially. “It is such a mixture now when I look out into the crowd — even an age mixture: I’ll get folks anywhere from 7 to 70,” she says. “I call this record ‘The Order of Time,’ but we’re stepping out of time when we listen to songs. Age doesn’t matter — you can be whatever age in your spirit and connect with these songs.”
Significantly, June has also seen her audience come to include more AfricanAmericans. While her old-timey folk/ blues sound yielded a mostly white fan base early on, she’s been heartened to see her crowds increasingly reflect her. “I think it’s part of a bigger thing I’m seeing culturally. For example, where I live in (Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood), I’m around so many awesome creative urban musicians and artists and working people. We’re all AfricanAmericans, and we’re doing our own thing — and not doing things just because somebody thinks we should because we’re black. It’s cool to see people authentically being themselves that don’t care about the color of their skin defining them. They just go for it and shine.
“It’s the same way with this music. (Black) people love rock and roll, they love folk and blues and country, and they love artists mixing those genres. I know I’m not the only black person who likes every single genre on planet Earth. So when I see more of my own people starting to come around to my sound, that makes me very happy.”