For Tennessean artist Valerie June, the concept of time and how we allow it to push and pull ourselves through life is a constant theme in her work, thoughts and daily practices.
“Usually in the winter, I try not to work but when things come up that are really things that I feel like are good for my heart, like going to Houston, I do them.” June will perform at The Heights Theater on Monday, January 22.
June’s Heights Theater performance will be a solo show with opener Texas based “Western Soul” artist Angel White. June plans on bringing her “family of instruments” as she performs songs and reads from her books.
For June, returning to Houston to perform is not only a great way to reconnect with her fanbase here but also an opportunity for the busy artist to take a moment to tune in with her real family here and get grounded before beginning another hectic spring season.
“I have fallen in love with Houston,” says June, who has not performed here in over five years but visits her family here yearly. Since her last performance June has been busy with many releases including The Moon And The Stars: Prescription For Dreamers, with her track “Call Me A Fool” featuring Memphis legend Carla Thomas earning a Grammy nomination.
In 2022, she released a lovely EP Under Cover where she does her take on some of the artist’s favorite songs showing off her eclectic taste in music which bleeds into her original songs that often carry elements from genres all over the map.
Coming from the small town of Humboldt, Tennessee which June describes as having just a few traffic lights and very slow pace of life, she always dreamt of seeing the world beyond.
“My roots were in this small, very limited place and I had these dreams that I would go to Africa, Australia and Europe. I will travel the world,” says June in her warm and thick southern accent.
Her music has allowed her to do just that and she relates her desire to expand her horizons to her approach to making music. “In the same way that musically I have a small root of just this base of folk blues and the history of my people that I carry in my blood, I also have always seen it as something that transcends one spot just like living in a small town.”
Throughout her career June has explored and melted a variety of genres all glued together by her undeniably one of a kind voice that carries with it the depth of her roots while reaching for the galaxies light years away.
“I don’t wanna just play only acoustic, folk, blues songs. I wanna expand and work with strings and horns. I live on the earthly realm with all the rest of us enjoying life but I also live in a magical space where there are swirling sounds and it’s very ethereal, orchestral, symphonic and futuristic and I think Afro futurism definitely plays a part in what I see as I envision the root of my music and where it goes it goes into the modern world.”
“I think Afro futurism definitely plays a part in what I see as I envision the root of my music and where it goes it goes into the modern world.”
June has also been pushing herself creatively to add author to her list of accomplishments. She has published three books, each with completely different concepts but all sharing her sweet, positive and uplifting joie de vivre.
In 2021 she released Maps For The Modern World, a book filled with short poems and accompanying illustrations followed the next year by Somebody To Love, a children’s book telling the story of how June wrote her beautiful song by the same name.
Last year June funneled her love for mindful living into a workbook in Light Beams: A Workbook For Being Your Badass Self where readers are presented with writing prompts and plenty of room to express themselves therapeutically within the pages.
“It’s so hard,” says June of mindfulness. “At first I was calling mindfulness practice ‘work’ and now I just call it ‘practice’ because there’s nowhere to get. You’re not going to get anywhere like ahead or behind in any way. It’s the way that we do things versus trying to reach some place.”
In a world that moves at a speed faster than light and a society so focused on productivity, it can be a real fight to slow down and appreciate life one thing at a time. “I think a lot of our society is we have this push to keep moving forward and keep constantly having something going on in our lives but sometimes, just brushing our teeth, making a salad or walking to the store is what you need to be doing right then and that’s enough.”
This lesson in scaling down has come from June’s exploration of meditation, philosophy, art and a natural influence from some of her Memphis heroes which she has worked with throughout the years and is now lucky enough to call friends.
Music giants like Booker T. Jones, Carla Thomas and Mavis Staples have all been an integral part of June’s growth as an artist and a person.
“I think working with my elders has been really helpful for me because when you look at the span of the career that they’ve had, they’ve been international but then they’re just down home Memphians and I think that about myself.”
When looking at her creative medium or the power of one’s thoughts and energy, June sees no limits and no reason to stop being positive and hopeful despite the viciously negative news cycles.
“I do think that the way that we make it through our day and the joy that we are able to give to those, from the clerk at the grocery store to the post office person, I think that creates a certain energy that can help to ripple across the planet and give somebody a lift or a positive feeling that you don’t even know.”
June describes a desire to explore these concepts in her art, life and as a leader of mindfulness retreats and workshops coming up this year. She wonders how the ripple effect of kindness could help shift individuals and societies as a whole possibly stopping some of the horrible events often seen in the headlines.
“How responsible are we all for nurturing each other?,” asks June. “You don’t have to know that person’s name or even be in their life but how are you treating them in your thoughts and in the way you exist in the world. I’m just exploring these things and doing it through art and music.”
Valerie June will perform with Angel White on Monday, January 22 at The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th. Doors at 7 p.m, tickets $28-544.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
