Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan run Tug,
Speaker 1: But enough about me. I first learned about my guest
Speaker 1: today a few years back from a dear friend of mine.
Speaker 1: They told me, you can listen to her music when
Speaker 1: you're at your lowest, and it's like receiving a nourishing hug. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't think I can do any better than that introduction.
Speaker 1: Her latest album, The Moon and Stars Prescriptions for Dreamers
Speaker 1: encompasses so much of it's warm and good and music
Speaker 1: earthy roots, the soulful, passionate, and compassionate. The songs are
Speaker 1: steeped in her Memphis upbringing, with a voice honed in
Speaker 1: the church, orchestrations by the great Stacks arranger Leicster Snell,
Speaker 1: at guest spot from legendary soul Queen Carla Thomas, and
Speaker 1: sessions at the world famous SUNS Studios. She's also included
Speaker 1: nature sounds recorded outside her family home in Tennessee, offering
Speaker 1: one of several meditative moments of reflection. We're listenings are
Speaker 1: invited to bring their own thoughts and feelings to the proceedings.
Speaker 1: It's a touching display of intimacy, emited, formidable displays of talent,
Speaker 1: and it also serves as a reminder that music is
Speaker 1: about communication and communication is a two way street. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to welcome Valerie June. Please basket or positivity
Speaker 1: and enjoy. Oh my goodness, so many things I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about. But first off, I want
Speaker 1: to talk to about your album In the Moon and
Speaker 1: Stars Prescriptions for Dreamers, which was out in the spring.
Speaker 1: How did it begin for you? It's such an astonishing record.
Speaker 1: Was there a song that that sort of manifested itself
Speaker 1: first that pointed away to the rest of the record? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was Um, And I don't really think about it
Speaker 1: like that because the record is a collection of songs
Speaker 1: that have come over the course of about fifteen or
Speaker 1: so years. But the song that really was the one
Speaker 1: that was like, oh out, I think I'm ready to
Speaker 1: make a record was um, call me a Foo. Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, all that you said over the course of
Speaker 1: fifteen years, what is that set? The oldest? Which is
Speaker 1: which is the oldest track on there? They're Falling is
Speaker 1: the oldest? And then colored right after that, Oh wow,
Speaker 1: I'll call me at four I mean, just it's such
Speaker 1: an amazing song. I mean, and of course it's got
Speaker 1: Carla Thomas on. I mean, what was that experience like
Speaker 1: working with her? Oh? My goodness, it was mind blowing
Speaker 1: because she is so bright and so delight and um
Speaker 1: high energy and just so encouraging and positive and everything
Speaker 1: that I dreamed. Sometimes when you meet like people who
Speaker 1: are famous that you really love, it's like you have
Speaker 1: all of these expectations and they can't possibly live up
Speaker 1: to it. But Carla lives up to it and then
Speaker 1: exceeds it. I love hearing you together. I mean, my gosh,
Speaker 1: I've I've loved her. I think the first song I
Speaker 1: heard of hers was Tramped with Otis Redding and some
Speaker 1: do At. I mean, she's just the best. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And I love how on Tramp she uses her speaking
Speaker 1: voice as well as her singing voice. And accidentally it
Speaker 1: happened on this record The Moon and Stars, because I
Speaker 1: was listening to her talk and tell amazing stories about
Speaker 1: working with Otis and her father Rufus and all of
Speaker 1: her sister and everything. And as I was listening to
Speaker 1: her talk, I was like, you know, she really shouldn't
Speaker 1: read the African proverb before the song, and so I
Speaker 1: asked her if she would read it, and she did
Speaker 1: and her voice was perfect. She's like the fairy god
Speaker 1: Mother reading this magical quote over this dreamy, dreamy um
Speaker 1: interlude of music. It's so so sweet to have her.
Speaker 1: Oh it's so great, And I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: about that proverb, but such a I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: it and I keep going back and forth. And I
Speaker 1: do this with a lot of song lyrics. I kind
Speaker 1: of look at them from different angles, only a full
Speaker 1: test the depths of the water with both feet, which
Speaker 1: makes sense, but there's almost a sense so of you know,
Speaker 1: you hear the you have the other expression of diving
Speaker 1: in with both feet, like a look before you leap,
Speaker 1: almost going on faith, which is sort of the opposite
Speaker 1: of that too. It's a funny. I feel like that
Speaker 1: you could play it both ways. Well, it does work
Speaker 1: both ways, and mamm I think that what I was
Speaker 1: trying to do in using it is say that, yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to just jump in that water. You need
Speaker 1: to do that in your life. But also when Carla
Speaker 1: is saying it, she's saying it before the song called
Speaker 1: me a fool, so she's saying it kind of in
Speaker 1: a way of are you sure you want to jump
Speaker 1: in that water? Only a fool would do it, And
Speaker 1: the fact that she does join me and singing on
Speaker 1: the actual song, Once the Dreamer, who I guess I
Speaker 1: am in this whole narrative, Once the Dreamer begins to
Speaker 1: dream and does take the leap, and is the fool
Speaker 1: She joins in at the end, singing that this beautiful
Speaker 1: high soprano because she's glad that you trusted yourself enough
Speaker 1: to dare to dream, to take the leap, knowing that
Speaker 1: you could fall. I mean, this is the whole album
Speaker 1: is so beautiful because, as you say, it is directed
Speaker 1: towards these dreamers out there to give them encouragement and
Speaker 1: nurture their own creative spirit. As a teenage artist and
Speaker 1: a dreamer, did you get that kind of support growing
Speaker 1: up when you were first beginning of your time in music? Hell? No,
Speaker 1: apparently got that support, Like even when I started and
Speaker 1: got a label. You know, it's like, you know, when
Speaker 1: you are a dreamer, you're constantly like, uh, you're on
Speaker 1: shaky ground. I'll just put it that way, because the
Speaker 1: path isn't clear. It's it's like Joseph Campbell's says that
Speaker 1: you gotta follow your bliss, and if you're on the
Speaker 1: path this like got a whole lot of clarity to it,
Speaker 1: then that's probably not your path, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like being a dreamer means to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: remaining childlike in a way. I mean, and you know,
Speaker 1: how do you keep that sense of, you know, the
Speaker 1: inner child alive, not only in one but especially in
Speaker 1: the music industry, which you know, as you mentioned, is
Speaker 1: not exactly famous for, you know, catering to the inner child,
Speaker 1: that's true. I think one way that I like to
Speaker 1: do it is by spending a lot of time in
Speaker 1: nature and seeing how like the old growth trees are
Speaker 1: the protectors of the new growth, and how like all
Speaker 1: of the forest grounds being down there, being at the
Speaker 1: bottom but also soaring to the top, that there's an
Speaker 1: equal balance between the two, you know, and all seeing
Speaker 1: that and staying in that space and working with plants
Speaker 1: and watching how they grow and how they die and
Speaker 1: how they rose, rise and fall. That really helps me
Speaker 1: to mentally handle what I face as a musician in
Speaker 1: the modern music world, because nature is not always kind,
Speaker 1: you know, death exists there diseased exists there, but it
Speaker 1: does always abide and prevail. It always like makes it through.
Speaker 1: And when a flower is seen, it's so glorious because
Speaker 1: you've seen what it took for that to happen. It
Speaker 1: took a whole lot of work for the rain, the sun,
Speaker 1: the soil, everything was working for that flower, and then
Speaker 1: it doesn't last, you know. And so I think when
Speaker 1: I look at nature and I realize how small I
Speaker 1: am in the universe, but large as well, that that
Speaker 1: perspective helps me, because otherwise it is really tough to
Speaker 1: be a dreamer. You know. I read I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if this is true that you had the studio filled
Speaker 1: with with fresh flowers when you were working. Is that true? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: every time I would go just anywhere to the local
Speaker 1: grocery store and find flowers in the cities where where
Speaker 1: in Miami and lay in different places and just bring
Speaker 1: them because they say that flowers are stars of the earth,
Speaker 1: and I love that. I love the stars being like
Speaker 1: something I can never physically touch. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I can't such flowers, I can work with them, so
Speaker 1: let me go and give them. And they change the
Speaker 1: energy and the mood of a space for the musicians.
Speaker 1: Even Oh, I bet now I heard that you recorded
Speaker 1: some of us at at Sam Phillips's Sons Studios in Memphis.
Speaker 1: What was that like? I mean being in those hollowed halls.
Speaker 1: I mean, where did you stand on the X where
Speaker 1: Elvis saying or well, I loved it. I mean it
Speaker 1: was I first of all the owner. He was there
Speaker 1: and he did take me on a tour. And there
Speaker 1: are parts of Sam Phillips that are so protected that
Speaker 1: they don't even let you go to. He will say, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we can't let you see that area. But you know
Speaker 1: they still make music there. Um, some of the sound rooms,
Speaker 1: but um, it's just got the same vibe as it
Speaker 1: had during that time period when all the hits were
Speaker 1: coming out, Like upstairs is preserved way it was when
Speaker 1: Elvis was there, And UM, it's just so wonderful to
Speaker 1: be able to say that on every record I've done.
Speaker 1: Pretty much, I've worked in Tennessee, in particularly Memphis, because
Speaker 1: it's one of my birthplaces and I was originally born
Speaker 1: in Jackson, Tennessee, and how Humboldt, Tennessee is home to
Speaker 1: my family, and then Memphis is the home of my music.
Speaker 1: That's where I first got on stage first he has
Speaker 1: chose first started learning how to play the instruments. That
Speaker 1: was in my early twenties. So to be able to
Speaker 1: always continue to go home and nurture what I have
Speaker 1: there in being from Memphis, I think that's super super important,
Speaker 1: especially for um other like young black girls, to see, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we can do anything we want to do.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, We can do anything we
Speaker 1: wanted to do on these Memphis streets. Absolutely, I know
Speaker 1: you got a little bit of of your your home
Speaker 1: in there on some of the the starlight ethereal silence.
Speaker 1: I think those those birds are from your your family home,
Speaker 1: right yeah. And Humboldt, Tennessee. And there's a pond behind
Speaker 1: the house, and we get visits from the great blue harem,
Speaker 1: from snakes, from Salamander's frogs, and and as you see
Speaker 1: the day rising, you can hear the birds begin to
Speaker 1: get louder and louder, and as the day gets hot,
Speaker 1: they start to quiet down. But as it ends, you
Speaker 1: hear the symphony beginning. And it starts always with the birds,
Speaker 1: and they're back and forth with each other, the different types.
Speaker 1: But then the cicadas and then the bullfrogs and it
Speaker 1: goes on all night long. That's a beautiful lullaby. It
Speaker 1: is every day and it's just so great. And the
Speaker 1: sun that sets um. You can sit on the back
Speaker 1: porch and see the sun sitting by over the pond.
Speaker 1: And I used to sit out there with my dad
Speaker 1: and it was never the same. I realized that the
Speaker 1: sunset is literally never the same. When you are busy
Speaker 1: in your life and you don't take the time for it,
Speaker 1: you always think, oh, it's just sunset. But if you
Speaker 1: really watch it, the color is begin to pop and
Speaker 1: it goes crazy in different ways, and it's never the same. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's that's so funny, my my fun I learned everything
Speaker 1: I know about sunsets. I learned from my father. We
Speaker 1: grew up on on a little pond with different coves,
Speaker 1: and he would always call it chasing the sunset. We
Speaker 1: get in the boat, watch it from one part of
Speaker 1: the pond, and when it would dip below the horizon,
Speaker 1: we'd roll out a little further so we could still
Speaker 1: kind of see it above the horiz and watch it
Speaker 1: dip lower, and we keep it going. We'd roll all
Speaker 1: the way across the pond over forty five minutes an hour,
Speaker 1: and we we'd see how many sunsets we could catch.
Speaker 1: And I feel like there's a metaphor in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: I don't really know what it is, but it's just
Speaker 1: the perfect perfect way to spend the evening, I think absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love how on your wreck could you
Speaker 1: have these still moments I mean, like stay meditation and
Speaker 1: starlight ethereal silence like I mentioned earlier, I mean it
Speaker 1: feels almost like the end of a yoga session or
Speaker 1: a meditation session with the bell ringing or a singing
Speaker 1: bowl or something. What let you to incorporate those moments
Speaker 1: into your album. Well, the one muld stay Meditation was
Speaker 1: the very first one, and that was worked together with
Speaker 1: Um Jack Splash, who's the co producer and he's pretty
Speaker 1: much the producer of every popping track on the record.
Speaker 1: And when I was working with Jack, he does these
Speaker 1: beautiful interludes with the artists that he works with, from
Speaker 1: Tanking the Bengers to Um to St. Paul and the
Speaker 1: Broken Bones. He's done these amazing, sweet little bits, and
Speaker 1: so I was saying to him, you know, I love
Speaker 1: how you do that with your work, and I really
Speaker 1: want to do something like a meditation on this song Stay,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to sound like, you know, chimes, like
Speaker 1: you're sitting alone in a park and you're listening to
Speaker 1: these beautiful child comes in the wind, like the giant ones.
Speaker 1: And so we were able to incorporate that into the
Speaker 1: song Stay. But then as we went on, more and
Speaker 1: more of them came, like, for example, when I was
Speaker 1: trapped in the pandemic like all of us quarantining we
Speaker 1: um we. I started to record that bird song at
Speaker 1: my family home and I sent it over to him
Speaker 1: and he was like, I love it, we have to
Speaker 1: use it. And he sent it and he played piano,
Speaker 1: but he also sent it to a Native American flute
Speaker 1: musician who did these beautiful flute pieces over it. And
Speaker 1: it's just really, how do we incorporate like the natural world,
Speaker 1: the ethereal realm, and the physical world in sound. Create
Speaker 1: that soundscape and that stratospheric sound that we feel every
Speaker 1: day when we wake up and walk out. You know
Speaker 1: it's there. Just bring that music to an extraal hand
Speaker 1: held on a vinyl. How do you do it? So
Speaker 1: that's what we were trying want to do, bringing in
Speaker 1: some of the world's music to um to this the
Speaker 1: you know, orchestrated and arranged tracks. Oh, it's absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 1: I mean I speaking of orchestrating and arranging tracks. You
Speaker 1: worked with the great Lester Snell, who's worked with folks
Speaker 1: like Isaac Hays and the Barqueys and the Masqueraders and
Speaker 1: so many incredible people. The arrangements, I mean, they compliment
Speaker 1: your voice and the emotions so well. When you're writing,
Speaker 1: do you hear those production flourishes or is that something
Speaker 1: that takes place in the studio almost by uh, you know,
Speaker 1: trial and error and collaboration. I hear them as voices
Speaker 1: and so one of the things that really worked working
Speaker 1: with Jack d it was that I sang him the
Speaker 1: voices that I heard, and he was able to say, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, I know. Just the person who's going
Speaker 1: to be able to translate that those voices into the
Speaker 1: string parts, and that was Mr Lester. And he introduced
Speaker 1: me to Leicester, and believe it or not, after a
Speaker 1: decade of living in Memphis, Tennessee, he said, do you
Speaker 1: know Wester Snail? And I was like, no, who's that?
Speaker 1: And he was like, you don't know who wester Is
Speaker 1: and you lived in Memphis And I was like no,
Speaker 1: and he was like, okay, you know it's music then,
Speaker 1: and he went like you did down the list, that's
Speaker 1: a case Um, Margot Price, Um, all of these amazing
Speaker 1: modern musicians but also old school musicians. And he was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: you gotta go to Memphis. You gotta work with wester
Speaker 1: He's gonna be able to achieve this. And he did.
Speaker 1: You know. So Jack was really like the one who
Speaker 1: knew how to take the voices that I hear and
Speaker 1: to make them into an arrangement of music. You know,
Speaker 1: who's gonna be the person to play that fleet part
Speaker 1: on um stay, Who's gonna be the person to bring
Speaker 1: together these horn voices that I hear? And so he
Speaker 1: just was able to do it. And the key person
Speaker 1: I love that he brought was um. This guy a
Speaker 1: Cave who played the bass on um started scattering. We
Speaker 1: were in the studio and I was like bumping around
Speaker 1: like Bunda, I'm pump pump um pump pump, pum pum pump,
Speaker 1: I don't know, singing him and humming them this part.
Speaker 1: And he was just able to go and do it
Speaker 1: all on the base like just like spaghetti fingers, okay,
Speaker 1: And I was like, thank you so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had crime moments, I had laugh moments. I was
Speaker 1: on the floor sun sounds balling because the motion of
Speaker 1: the work was so rich and heavy in the studio,
Speaker 1: you know. So yeah, it was an adventure. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: I beat. I mean when you I'm always so curious
Speaker 1: to speak too. If you are blessed with the ability
Speaker 1: to write songs, I'm always curious to ask what compels
Speaker 1: you to do it? Is it in your case? Is
Speaker 1: it a case of wanting to communicate with other people,
Speaker 1: or is it a desire to just sort of get
Speaker 1: these feelings out of you, almost like an exorcism, or
Speaker 1: is it a little bit of both. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a little of both. But to me, it's mostly just
Speaker 1: the voices, like because I hear them and they sound
Speaker 1: so pretty to me, and I'm just like beaming with
Speaker 1: these voices that I wanted to like just sing them
Speaker 1: all and share them all. Like that's the thing that
Speaker 1: propels me. I think, when I don't hear it, when
Speaker 1: I don't hear the voices and I don't hear songs,
Speaker 1: and I don't catch them, and they aren't the thing
Speaker 1: that come to me when I'm sleeping. For example, bright Stars,
Speaker 1: it was a dream song. Or when I'm like walking
Speaker 1: down the street, I hear them. And because I hear them,
Speaker 1: that's why I translated, because I know that nobody else
Speaker 1: is gonna hear it the way I heard it, you know.
Speaker 1: But I think if I don't hear them anymore, if
Speaker 1: they stop, then I'll stop. That's that'll be that, you know,
Speaker 1: It'll just I won't hear any more songs. What do
Speaker 1: you do when you get stuck to go for a
Speaker 1: walk or do you just kind of share? Willpower just
Speaker 1: go through until you finish it? I stop? I can stop.
Speaker 1: What I do is I get. I get what I get,
Speaker 1: and that could be a whole song, or it could
Speaker 1: be a piece of a song, or it could just
Speaker 1: be like a hume or a melody. I get it.
Speaker 1: And if I don't hear anymore, then I'll walk away.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm hopeful that I'll get some more. But
Speaker 1: if I don't, it can take like years, like it
Speaker 1: could take a decade and I haven't received the second part.
Speaker 1: Or sometimes I will have that first part and I'll
Speaker 1: write with another songwriter, and they'll have the other part.
Speaker 1: But if I don't get anymore, then I don't get
Speaker 1: anymore period, and it just doesn't happen. But sometimes what
Speaker 1: happens is that the voice, the first voice that I hear,
Speaker 1: I hear that voice, and as I hear that voice,
Speaker 1: I'll hear another voice and another voice, and another voice
Speaker 1: and another voice, and they layer and they stack, and
Speaker 1: to me, they're all voices. Usually they're not usually um,
Speaker 1: they're not usually instruments. And that's the beauty of what
Speaker 1: Jack was able to do is say, for that voice,
Speaker 1: that voice is strings. When I hum him the voice,
Speaker 1: he's able to hear it and say, let's let's make
Speaker 1: that strings, because for me, it's just like and I
Speaker 1: hear all of them together, you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: all of them like a chorus, you know. Or acquire
Speaker 1: dude a cappella album some day or something with you
Speaker 1: doing all the parts, like that would be so fun. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be. I read. I'm not sure if this
Speaker 1: is true that when you first started working with Jack,
Speaker 1: you sent um your lyrics to him as as poetry
Speaker 1: first before playing the songs to him. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask if that was true first of all, and also
Speaker 1: I wouldn't ask why you did that. I thought that
Speaker 1: was like such a cool approach of putting the emotion first,
Speaker 1: almost before the melody I did. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I sent them separate, but I sent it for sure altogether,
Speaker 1: the lyrics them, the songs, and then words that like
Speaker 1: make the song's feeling. For example, I would send words
Speaker 1: like um, constellations, iridescent, um, radiant, bright, shimmering, glowing, sparkling, stratosphere.
Speaker 1: I send words that we're putting him in the mind
Speaker 1: of where I wanted him to go in the space
Speaker 1: of the song. And then I also sent proverbs and
Speaker 1: poems and quotes from people other people that that are
Speaker 1: thematically fitting with what I feel the song is saying
Speaker 1: to me, so that he would be able to go
Speaker 1: to that space in his mind too. And he was.
Speaker 1: He was able to go. He was pretty much already there.
Speaker 1: He didn't need me to help film me was already there.
Speaker 1: Is when you meet someone like Jack. I knew from
Speaker 1: the moment I met him that he was going to
Speaker 1: be able to get it, because we had a capecit
Speaker 1: the man's art sensibility, his fashion sensibility, his music taste,
Speaker 1: all of that, in being in his studio and sitting
Speaker 1: and sitting in his environment, all of that was pretty
Speaker 1: clear to me that he was going to be able
Speaker 1: to go to the space where I wanted him to
Speaker 1: go for this creation. You know, he was already there.
Speaker 1: It's so funny to me, how I mean hearing you
Speaker 1: say this to me. So many of the words and
Speaker 1: phrases are celestial thinking, you know, moon and stars, and
Speaker 1: it's so funny how those have become so synonymous in
Speaker 1: culture with dreaming. And I guess maybe because we're thinking back,
Speaker 1: that was the furthest off point that we could possibly
Speaker 1: imagine as as human beings, and maybe that was the
Speaker 1: biggest dream of all to sort of get out there.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting to me how dreaming and stars in
Speaker 1: the moon are are linked in a way. It's true.
Speaker 1: And the fact that we still having attained all the
Speaker 1: knowledge of what's happening out there, you know, it feel
Speaker 1: like there's so much more to explore. And and so
Speaker 1: I wanted for people when they listen to it, to
Speaker 1: be able to go to a magical realm in their mind,
Speaker 1: because dreaming is not easy, and it is hard, and
Speaker 1: it is dark sometimes, and when we face so much
Speaker 1: darkness in the world, it's very difficult for us to
Speaker 1: open up our imagination as we get older and continue
Speaker 1: to dream and to continue and continue to hope for
Speaker 1: a new and brighter future. And the only way we
Speaker 1: can do that is if we yeah face what's heavy
Speaker 1: and dark, but also pushed through that to see back
Speaker 1: like we did when we were children, the possibilities, the
Speaker 1: hope that's there, and it was just such a it
Speaker 1: is just such a um like uh, heaviness to life.
Speaker 1: When you look at the realities of suffering that we
Speaker 1: face every day and the world and the way things
Speaker 1: are shaped, it can be very challenging to wake up
Speaker 1: and say, well, how do I find joy today? How
Speaker 1: do I believe that something I wish for can really happen,
Speaker 1: and that that thing would be something not just for me,
Speaker 1: but for all living beings, that it would lift them up,
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't make them feel joy, that it would
Speaker 1: make them feel like a beauty to life, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, You've been asked a lot in the past
Speaker 1: about your your activism and politics over the last few years,
Speaker 1: and I love the response you usually give about sort
Speaker 1: of radical optimism, I think is the phrase and resistance
Speaker 1: through joy, which is I think is something that we
Speaker 1: all need and we can all learn from. And I
Speaker 1: want to ask you you more about that, because that
Speaker 1: that sense of of joy really does come through. I
Speaker 1: think you lead by example with your music, that sense
Speaker 1: of of radical optimism that you touched on them. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go thank you. I you know, radical optimism is
Speaker 1: something that people have said to me about the way
Speaker 1: that they see me existing in the world. Um, but
Speaker 1: I never claimed it fully for myself. What I do see, though,
Speaker 1: is that what what what we focus on in our lives.
Speaker 1: I see that being the thing that we live and
Speaker 1: breathe every single day. And if we are focused on
Speaker 1: like what isn't happening and what isn't going right? And
Speaker 1: all the wrongs and all the injustice, then we begin
Speaker 1: to see that repeated again and again throughout centuries history.
Speaker 1: I mean, we see it happening again and again. But
Speaker 1: I just wonder what would happen if there was a
Speaker 1: period of time when people were able and did focus
Speaker 1: on their joy. What we did look like with the
Speaker 1: earth began to shift, what our energy began to shift,
Speaker 1: with the relationships we have with the rest of the
Speaker 1: world being began to shift. I mean, what is truly
Speaker 1: possible when we focus on positivity? What we don't know,
Speaker 1: We've never truly explored it. What we have done is
Speaker 1: explored the possibilities of the darkness or the things that
Speaker 1: could happen that are the fears. And so I just
Speaker 1: really feel like, um, yeah, it's true. All of the
Speaker 1: negativity is there, is real, it's very very present. But
Speaker 1: we create that. We create the space where we, you know,
Speaker 1: can experience something beautiful. We can create that. And so
Speaker 1: I just I think like if we each shift that
Speaker 1: energy and began to use that negative energy for something positive,
Speaker 1: then the world gets a little bit more in balance.
Speaker 1: You know. That's just what I think. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think at least it's worth rn. Yeah, it beats
Speaker 1: the alternative, certainly. Yes, it's an experiment. It's all an experiment.
Speaker 1: There's no absolute there. I have a very dear friend
Speaker 1: who's actually the person who introduced me to to your
Speaker 1: music a few years back, and in describing your music
Speaker 1: to me initially, she said, I'll never forget it. You
Speaker 1: can listen to her music when you're at your lowest
Speaker 1: and it's like receiving a nourishing hug. First of all,
Speaker 1: I want to say that's absolutely right. And second of all,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask, what is the best thing you
Speaker 1: can hear from someone who listens to your music? Is
Speaker 1: there a response that someone can say to you and
Speaker 1: you can think, Okay, that song came from a really
Speaker 1: tough experience or painful place, but getting that reaction really
Speaker 1: makes it worth it. What's the best thing you can
Speaker 1: hear from someone who hears the song of yours? Ah? Oh, listen,
Speaker 1: you know the best thing I can hear from someone
Speaker 1: who's heard my music? Oh, that's a hard question. It's
Speaker 1: very hard. I I mean, just yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think they necessarily have to like it. I don't
Speaker 1: think they have to tell me that they loved it
Speaker 1: at all. I don't think they have to say that
Speaker 1: they liked my voice. But I think they have to
Speaker 1: tell me that they felt something. I know that the
Speaker 1: raw emotion that they were able to feel something, Because
Speaker 1: like when you start feeling and when you start tapping
Speaker 1: into the real core of yourself, then all things are open.
Speaker 1: You know, you're opening your heart. Then it's not a
Speaker 1: breaking of the hardest and opening, and I want to
Speaker 1: do that. I want to open people's hearts through song.
Speaker 1: I want to make them feel like when I hear
Speaker 1: it a j I'm singing and she like uh growls
Speaker 1: or she like twists and turns with her voice, I
Speaker 1: feel something and it's not always pretty, you know. And
Speaker 1: when Jannis Jacquelin sings, it's not always pretty, but I
Speaker 1: feel something, you know. And there are things to hate about,
Speaker 1: say Nina Simone's voice sometimes, but I feel something and
Speaker 1: I want to feel that, you know. I want to
Speaker 1: feel that. I want to feel um what I feel
Speaker 1: when I listened to Karen Dalton singing and her voice
Speaker 1: is super odd, but I want to feel that. I
Speaker 1: want to feel it, you know, And it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be like a good feeling. I need to feel
Speaker 1: what that is, you know. I just don't even have
Speaker 1: to be able to describe it. I need to just
Speaker 1: feel it. And so as people can feel what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: then that's the best thing for me, because I'm like, yeah, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: it made you feel something, and maybe it didn't make
Speaker 1: you feel something positive, maybe it makes you feel something negative,
Speaker 1: but get that out in song versus another way you
Speaker 1: could get it out, you know. I think songs are
Speaker 1: a powerful tool for helping a shift energies, like whenever
Speaker 1: I feel like super sad or down and I'm just
Speaker 1: not believing in myself. If I put it on Johnny Taylor,
Speaker 1: I believe in you. And I listened to it again
Speaker 1: and again and again, it begins to be not about
Speaker 1: him singing to his lover and his lover singing to him.
Speaker 1: It really begins to be something inside of me telling
Speaker 1: me that it believes in me that I can make
Speaker 1: it through this day, you know. And so lyrics to
Speaker 1: songs begin to be like that for me. And I
Speaker 1: hope that people with these songs can can have them
Speaker 1: as a prescription like that, you know, I can. I
Speaker 1: can promise you they do. I mean, this is probably
Speaker 1: an unanswerable question, but what is it about music that
Speaker 1: makes it such an effective media to transmit emotion? I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time wondering that, and I don't
Speaker 1: have an answer myself, but I think just the ability
Speaker 1: for sound and not have to be with words or
Speaker 1: or understood with language, sounds is its own language, and
Speaker 1: that alone is it to me? It's like it's just
Speaker 1: things you can say with just an ah or an ooh,
Speaker 1: or a tone or a timbre of it, and that
Speaker 1: you can't say with words. You just can't say it words.
Speaker 1: Just like if you say the word God, or you
Speaker 1: say the word god is or a word like that. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that word doesn't do what that what it is, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't even touch what it is. When you walk
Speaker 1: into a cathedral of beautiful trees and you look up,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, you feel God, but you don't. You
Speaker 1: can't say that word in capsture to me. You know,
Speaker 1: it's an experience. Yeah, So music does that. It says
Speaker 1: what you can't say. That's a beautiful way to put it,
Speaker 1: I think. I mean speaking of mediums, I have to
Speaker 1: I mention I should have said this early. Congratulations on
Speaker 1: your book, Maps for the Modern World, which came out
Speaker 1: in April. How is your experience as an author compared
Speaker 1: to your experience as a musician and a performer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I put a book in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yay, I never thought I would write a book,
Speaker 1: So that's a huge thing. And the illustrations to have
Speaker 1: it finally done something with my passion and love for
Speaker 1: art that was really fine. I mean having the living
Speaker 1: room floor covered with like crayons and color pencils and
Speaker 1: all textures of paper. It was an amazing time creating it. Um.
Speaker 1: But with the whole book, compared to music as a path,
Speaker 1: it's like I've started over a year at the beginning,
Speaker 1: so it's the baby. It's still so small. And with music,
Speaker 1: I remember when that dream was still so small, and
Speaker 1: now it's kind of like in the middle, So it's
Speaker 1: still it has a long way to go. But you know,
Speaker 1: I did hold my very first record about I guess
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen or so years ago, maybe twenty years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: i was holding a record in my hand, and I'm
Speaker 1: just now holding my first book. So i look at
Speaker 1: it and I'm like, well, what am I gonna do
Speaker 1: When I'm sixty, Maybe I'll be working on books. Was
Speaker 1: there a moment for you, like a clear crystal moment,
Speaker 1: when you felt, Okay, you know what music is going
Speaker 1: to be what I devote my life too. Or was
Speaker 1: it was it something that was always there or a
Speaker 1: gradual realization. Yeah. Always, they're just like what I do.
Speaker 1: And I still feel like that that if I'm not
Speaker 1: on the world stage no matter what, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: doing music. That's just what I do. That's what I
Speaker 1: was born doing. And I always have song songs to
Speaker 1: myself and wrote songs for myself. And there's songs that
Speaker 1: I have, tons of them that the world will never hear.
Speaker 1: They're just songs I sang to myself, Like I have
Speaker 1: a song about eating, I have a song about cleaning,
Speaker 1: a song about sleeping, And these are songs that I
Speaker 1: sing to myself. And and so I I think that
Speaker 1: I was even scared to share the book and to
Speaker 1: put the book out because they were things I did
Speaker 1: for myself. Like I didn't have those things to share
Speaker 1: with the world. It was like something that I have
Speaker 1: for myself or um. And so like that fear that
Speaker 1: happens when you're a dreamer and you've shared something and
Speaker 1: maybe the world doesn't like it. Um that that was
Speaker 1: something I didn't have to deal with with my drawings
Speaker 1: and with my poetry because I just did it for
Speaker 1: me and so I didn't have to be afraid of
Speaker 1: sharing it. But eventually I get over that fear and
Speaker 1: I just say, Okay, everything has to line up for
Speaker 1: that though, like for example, meeting Amanda Lucidan and you
Speaker 1: know Adam, her husband, I mean Allen and them like saying, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you share your work with this literary agent,
Speaker 1: and then the literary agents sending it to like a
Speaker 1: hundred different publishers and getting all these rejections, and then
Speaker 1: finally two of them wanted it, and then finally finding
Speaker 1: the one. All of that stuff had to line up
Speaker 1: for me to share the work. You know, if none
Speaker 1: of that stuff happened, then I wouldn't do that. I
Speaker 1: would just still do it for me. So that's how
Speaker 1: that siddy things works. Is it? If the doors are
Speaker 1: open being I do shared. If they don't open, I
Speaker 1: keep it from me. I feel like it's so easy
Speaker 1: for for people who have creativity, but that's not there.
Speaker 1: You know, that's not the way they pay rent to
Speaker 1: talk themselves out of doing things. And you're kind of
Speaker 1: alluded that a smaller way with with the book, you know,
Speaker 1: I you know, I all, I'll play around on the
Speaker 1: guitar on the weekends or something, or you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna I'm not gonna make money off of doing this,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna, you know, put it aside. And
Speaker 1: I think that takes out a lot of dreamers in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. How do you push through that?
Speaker 1: How do you say, you know what, this is mine
Speaker 1: and I I'm gonna pursue this for me and not
Speaker 1: for any kind of external validation or reward, Like, how
Speaker 1: do you how do you mean you mentioned earlier about
Speaker 1: being a little nervous about putting your book out there?
Speaker 1: How do you push beyond that and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it anyway. Well, what happens eventually
Speaker 1: if you are doing that work anyway is that the
Speaker 1: work pushes you through it. The work is like when
Speaker 1: you're sitting there and you've got like a huge stack
Speaker 1: of poems or songs, the work begins to say, okay,
Speaker 1: now what are you gonna do with me? And it
Speaker 1: begins to put you in situations like you might be
Speaker 1: at a party, Well what have you been up to?
Speaker 1: I've just been writing writing? What writing poems? Like? How
Speaker 1: many do you have? Four hundred? What you got four?
Speaker 1: You're a poet? No? You know, like whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you're doing, Yes, you're working your day jobs and
Speaker 1: you're doing the things you got to do for money,
Speaker 1: but you're doing something that nourishes your spirit and your
Speaker 1: soul and your heart, and it keeps your childlikeness about
Speaker 1: you and whatever that is. As long as you do it,
Speaker 1: you can do it for five or two minutes a day,
Speaker 1: or five or ten minutes a month times twenty years.
Speaker 1: As long as you do it, then it's going to
Speaker 1: find the place it needs to be. Like maybe it
Speaker 1: might find your granky as they might open up a
Speaker 1: chance and there will be all these cool things that
Speaker 1: you drew or did, But you have to do that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's when we stopped doing that, that's
Speaker 1: when the world starts to get very very gray and dark.
Speaker 1: And I think more people if we celebrate it that
Speaker 1: side of ourselves longer. And we allowed people to and
Speaker 1: it wasn't just all like you must study this, you
Speaker 1: must work hard at that, you must get money, money, money,
Speaker 1: If it wasn't all that, and we did have time
Speaker 1: to nurture that side of ourselves, which I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people did have during the pandemic, and they're like,
Speaker 1: I want to keep that, you know, why can't I
Speaker 1: keep that? It's just as important as the working, you know, um,
Speaker 1: Like we have to have that and and it inspires
Speaker 1: dreams and it inspires kindness for ourselves and then we
Speaker 1: see that reflected out in the world, you know, when
Speaker 1: we're living that way. Who how's the pandemic? Uh changed
Speaker 1: your relationship to music? Wow? It really changed a lot
Speaker 1: of things. It really did. It. Like one of the
Speaker 1: things that did was it made it where I sit
Speaker 1: down and I tried to practice music versus just playing
Speaker 1: and playing what comes. So that's been a really good
Speaker 1: thing for me to have, like an actual practice where
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, I'm gonna sit here and I want
Speaker 1: to play these scales on the guitar for a few hours.
Speaker 1: I didn't do that. I've never done that in twenty years.
Speaker 1: I've never really done that. What I've done is like
Speaker 1: learned courts and then put them to my voice. But
Speaker 1: now it's like I'm actually trying to learn how to
Speaker 1: play the inst your rents, And that's pretty important for me,
Speaker 1: I think for the future is to know more about
Speaker 1: the instruments and have a better relationship with them. Have
Speaker 1: you started sitting down and um almost like letting your
Speaker 1: hands do the work and kind of finding chords and
Speaker 1: uh and constructing songs that way as opposed to hearing
Speaker 1: the melody in your head and singing it. I think
Speaker 1: that's coming. I really do, because when I stay with
Speaker 1: another songwriter, all songwriters write differently. And most of the
Speaker 1: people that I've written with are more skilled musicians than me,
Speaker 1: and so they do right that way. And so because
Speaker 1: I love the way I right and I'm always I
Speaker 1: feel like I'll have that as long as I have it.
Speaker 1: Maybe it will stop coming that way, but I would
Speaker 1: like to learn how to do other ways of writing,
Speaker 1: and so I think this is going to open that
Speaker 1: whole meadow up to me where it's like, WHOA, Okay
Speaker 1: now that I feel good about where I am with
Speaker 1: that part of learning music. And have you even learned
Speaker 1: to read music and write music as far as the notations?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know how to do that. So
Speaker 1: I have so much more to learn, and I feel
Speaker 1: like the pandemic helps me to decide that these are
Speaker 1: going to be the hours that I do this. You
Speaker 1: know that I dedicate to this. Has it changed you
Speaker 1: in other ways as it taught you anything about about
Speaker 1: yourself just as a as a as a person, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it brought a lot to like, Like, for example,
Speaker 1: I love to be alone. And I love to be
Speaker 1: at home. And you know, even if I'm out in
Speaker 1: the world and traveling into it, I like that will
Speaker 1: alone time. And I think I questioned before the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I was like, now I need to be more social
Speaker 1: and stuff. But now I know that that's something that
Speaker 1: I really need. I need that I need to be alone.
Speaker 1: I need to like be in the world, but alone.
Speaker 1: Like today, I went, I walked around the city and
Speaker 1: deed things, but you know, and I observed the world,
Speaker 1: but I was alone, and that was needed. You know.
Speaker 1: I need to listen to the sounds of the city,
Speaker 1: the honking horns or you know, go and see it
Speaker 1: and listen to the what's happening near the pond or whatever,
Speaker 1: and and be in the world. But I need to
Speaker 1: be alone. And I know that now. Before I'd be like, no,
Speaker 1: I should probably go and get out and do stuff
Speaker 1: or invite someone to walk with me, or no. Every
Speaker 1: once in a while, Yeah, I need that, But I
Speaker 1: also need probably eighty percent of the time, I need
Speaker 1: to self quarantine. You need that for yourself and to
Speaker 1: allow the time for the voices too. Yeah, I do
Speaker 1: something happens. I don't know how to describe it, but
Speaker 1: something does happened when I go there and sitting observed
Speaker 1: the world in a lonely kind of space, it's like whoa, Okay,
Speaker 1: new perspectives or read different people's ideas or thoughts on things,
Speaker 1: and that changes it too. So yeah, listen to all
Speaker 1: of these and by the time, I mean, it's gonna
Speaker 1: take a while to get through everything here, so having
Speaker 1: that a long time it is kind of important for
Speaker 1: that too, That is for listeners. There was the most
Speaker 1: amazing record shelf that I see behind Valerie right now
Speaker 1: is absolutely packed with what all I mean, good lord,
Speaker 1: what's on deck next? Well, I mean next to listen to.
Speaker 1: When I was in Jackson, which is my home when
Speaker 1: I'm not here in Brooklyn, stopped by this antique shop
Speaker 1: and they had a load of records, and so I
Speaker 1: bought so much mysterious stuff and some of it, you know,
Speaker 1: is good, and some of it isn't. So I feel
Speaker 1: like I have scored like and I it's like, well,
Speaker 1: that record cover really looks great, but the actual music
Speaker 1: is question noble. But this morning was Freddy King was
Speaker 1: named to Freddy King play the guitar and some amazing music.
Speaker 1: On on his records, and there have been some heavy
Speaker 1: Mavis moments and some heavy Robert White moments, and you know,
Speaker 1: of course Carla moments, and there's a lot of moments
Speaker 1: steel to be hey, So we'll see where I go next. Huh. Well,
Speaker 1: Valuejun thank you for your incredible music moments, and thank
Speaker 1: you for your time today. It's been such an honor
Speaker 1: and a pleasure speaking you. Thank you, Thank you, Jordan.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. We hope you enjoyed this episode of
Speaker 1: Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
Speaker 1: check out the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast orever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite I Guess