Valerie June vs. Lightnin' Hopkins

Here's Valerie June's update of "Life I Used To Live" by Texas blues great Lightnin' Hopkins along with his Herald version. 

Elvis Costello's King of America and Other Realms Concert

Elvis Costello and friends gathered for a King of America reprise for Austin City Limits last December. Here's how it went. 

Valerie June covers Nick Drake for deluxe edition of The Moon and Stars

Valerie June's version of Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" is one of nine bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of The Moon and Stars album.

Here's the scoop...

Valerie June’s latest album, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers, was one of 2021’s most celebrated releases. Today, the Grammy-nominated, genre-busting artist expands the album’s visionary scope with a special digital Deluxe Edition featuring 23 tracks in all: The Moon and Stars’ 14 original tracks, six reimagined, acoustic versions plus three brand-new covers that align with the album’s theme: Nick Drake’s "Pink Moon," John Lennon’s "Imagine" and Stephen Foster’s "Beautiful Dreamer." Check out "Pink Moon" below. 

The Deluxe Edition’s six reimagined album tracks include the previously shared Within You (Moon And Stars/Acoustic), Why The Bright Stars Glow (Moon And Stars/Acoustic) featuring Mavis Staples, and You And I (Moon And Stars/Acoustic) along with three previously unreleased acoustic versions of the songs, "Smile," "Stardust Scattering," and "Stay."

“This Deluxe Edition reimagines a few of the album’s key tracks in a stripped-down acoustic setting that offer intimate takes of some the album's richest arrangements,” June explains. “Listening to the original album versions alongside these acoustic arrangements shows the life of each song and how they can be appreciated both with luscious layers and in their simplest forms.  Songs are living entities, and it's always lovely to watch how a song with a huge arrangement can still touch a listener even in its simplicity.” 

The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers, produced by June and Jack Splash, is sweeping and ambitious with earthy R&B production and a touch of psychedelia amidst its astral folk-pop orchestration. Uncut called it “a psychedelic tour de force” that is “powerfully, elegantly subversive,” and Rolling Stone proclaimed it, “career making.” At the centre is June’s spellbinding vocals and infectious sense of wonder that finds the Brooklyn-via-Memphis artist narrating the often-precarious journey to joyful possibility. The follow-up to her 2013 breakthrough, Pushin’ Against A Stone, and the widely adored The Order of Time—a 2017 effort that earned the admiration of Bob Dylan and landed on best-of-the-year lists—The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers is a transportive, deeply affecting work - a potent catalyst for those foolish enough to dream. 

Tickets are on sale now for June’s 2022 headlining tour which kicks off on March 31st in Seattle, WA, with a stop at The Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on May 10th. Check the full routing is below and for more information visit valeriejune.com/#tour.

 

The Moon & Stars 2022 Tour Dates

Thu Mar 31 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox 
Fri Apr 1 – Vancouver, BC – The Commodore Ballroom 
Sat Apr 2 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater 
Sun Apr 3 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater 
Tue Apr 5 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore 
Wed Apr 6 – Berkeley, CA – The UC Theatre 
Fri Apr 8 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre 
Sat Apr 9 – San Diego, CA – Belly Up 
Fri Apr 22 – Kennett Square, PA – Longwood Gardens Open Air Theatre
Tue May 3 – Northampton, MA – Academy of Music Theatre 
Wed May 4 – New York, NY – Town Hall 
Thu May 5 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore 
Fri May 6 – Munhall, PA – Carnegie Music Hall at Homestead 
Sat May 7 – Ithaca, NY – State Theatre 
Tue May 10 – Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall 
Wed May 11 – Ferndale, MI – Magic Bag 
Fri May 13 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom 
Sat May 14 – Columbus, OH – The Athenaeum Theatre 
Sun May 15 – Indianapolis, IN – HI-FI Annex 
Mon May 16 – Bloomington, IL – The Castle Theatre 
Wed May 18 – Chicago, IL – Old Town School 
Thu May 19 – Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall 
Fri May 20 – Minneapolis, MN – Pantages Theatre
Sat May 21 – Iowa City, IA – Englert Theatre 
Sun May 22 – St. Louis, MO – Delmar Hall 
Tue May 24 – Louisville, KY – Paristown Hall 
Wed May 25 – Cincinnati, OH – Memorial Hall 
Fri May 27 – Harrisburg, PA – Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center 
Sat May 28 – Annapolis, MD – Ram's Head On Stage

One For The Weekend: Buffalo Nichols

Watch Buffalo Nichols sing "These Things" from his debut. He's slated to open for Valerie June at Danforth Music Hall on May 10. 

Buffalo Nichols announces tour dates 

Buffalo Nichols recently announced a 14-date headline tour in March and April in support of his acclaimed self-titled debut album, out now via Fat Possum. The headlining dates will follow a January/February tour supporting Houndmouth and will precede Nichols’ May tour supporting Valerie June. In March, he is also confirmed to perform at the Savannah Stopover festival as well as at Pelham, TN’s The Caverns for a sold-out taping of PBS’s Bluegrass Underground. 

Check the itinerary following the live videos of “These Things" and "How To Love."

 

Carl “Buffalo” Nichols — raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently based in Austin, TX— has also shared a live video of  a track from his debut LP released on October 15th. Since his earliest infatuations with guitar, Nichols has asked himself the same question: How can I bring the blues of the past into the future? After cutting his teeth between a Baptist church and bars in Milwaukee, it was a globetrotting trip through West Africa and Europe during a creative down period that began to reveal the answer. 

“Part of my intent, making myself more comfortable with this release, is putting more Black stories into the genres of folk and blues,” Nichols explains. “Listening to this record, I want more Black people to hear themselves in this music that is truly theirs.” That desire is embodied in his self-titled debut album, composed largely of demos and studio sessions recorded between Wisconsin and Texas.

Get a copy of Buffalo Nichols' self-titled debut right here. For more info, check out his site over here. 

 

Buffalo Nichols on tour:

1/23/22 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre ++

1/24/22 - Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall ++

1/25/22 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Cafe ++

1/27/22 - Des Moines, IA - Wooly’s ++

1/28/22 - Columbia, MO - Blue Note ++

1/29/22 - Kansas City, MO - The Truman ++

1/31/22 - St Louis, MO - Delmar Hall ++

2/1/22 - Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room Lounge ++

2/3/22 - Englewood, CO - Gothic Theatre ++

2/4/22 - Fort Collins, CO - Aggie Theatre ++

2/5/22 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Commonwealth Room ++

2/6/22 - Boise, ID - The Olympic ++

2/8/22 - Seattle, WA - Neumos ++

2/9/22 - Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom ++

2/11/22 - San Francisco, CA - Bimbo’s 365 Club ++

2/12/22 - Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre ++

2/14/22 - San Diego, CA - Belly Up Tavern ++

2/15/22 - Tucson, AZ - Club Congress Plaza ++

2/17/22 - Dallas, TX - Granada Theater ++

2/18/22 - San Antonio, TX - Sam's Burger Joint ++

2/19/22 - Austin, TX - Scoot Inn ++

2/20/22 - Houston, TX - The Heights Theater ++

3/12/22 - Savannah, GA - Savannah Stopover Music Festival 

3/19/22 - Pelham, TN - The Caverns - Bluegrass Underground (SOLD OUT)

3/30/33 - Austin, TX - The State Theatre

3/31/22 - Houston, TX - Dosey Doe

4/1/22 - New Orleans, LA - Hogs For The Cause

4/2/22 - Mobile, AL - Merry Widow

4/4/22 - Macon, GA - Grant's Lounge

4/6/22 - Sanford, FL - Tuffy's Music Box

4/7/22 - Jacksonville, FL - Blue Jay Listening Room

4/8/22 - Charleston, SC - Pour House 

4/9/22 - Athens, GA - The Lewis Room

4/12/22 - Birmingham, AL - The Nick

4/13/22 - Nashville TN - High Watt

4/14/22 - Tupelo, MS - Blue Canoe

4/15/22 - Waverly, AL - Standard Deluxe

4/16/22 - Jackson, MS - Duling Hall

5/3/22 - Northampton, MA - Academy of Music Theatre**

5/4/22 - New York, NY - Town Hall**

5/5/22 - Silver Spring, MD - The Fillmore Silver Spring**

5/6/22 - Munhall, PA - Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall**

5/7/22 - Ithaca, NY - State Theatre of Ithaca**

5/10/22 - Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall**

++ supporting Houndmouth

** supporting Valerie June

Quarantunes: Valerie June

Watch singer/songwriter Valerie June perform songs from her new album, The Moon And Stars from home for KEXP. 

Valerie June @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Sunday

In advance of Valerie June's much-anticipated Toronto show Sunday, here's her recent performance on KEXP. 

Valerie June @ The Great Hall, Thursday

Check out "Shakedown" from Valerie June's forthcoming album The Order of Time out March 10. 

The Order of Time

“Understanding the order of time is important to anyone hoping to manifest a dream,” says Valerie June. “There is a time to push, and a time to gently tend the garden.”

Since the release of her 2013 breakout Pushin’ Against A Stone, June has been patiently at work in the garden of song, nurturing seedlings with love and care into the lush bloom that is her new album, The Order Of Time. Some songs grew from seeds planted more than a decade ago, others blossomed overnight when she least expected them to, but every track bears the influence of time. See, time has been on June’s mind a lot lately. It’s the only constant in life, even though it’s constantly changing. It’s the healer of all wounds, the killer of all men. It’s at once infinite and finite, ever flowing with twists and turns and brutal, churning rapids that give way to serene stretches of placid tranquility. Fight against the current and it will knock you flat on your ass. Learn to read it, to speak its language, and it will carry you exactly where you’re meant to be.

“Time is the ruler of Earth’s rhythm,” June explains. “Our daily lives revolve around it. Our hearts beat along to its song. If we let it, it can be a powerful guide to turning our greatest hopes and dreams into realities.”

June knows a thing or two about turning hopes and dreams into realities. With Pushin’ Against A Stone, she went from self-releasing her music as Tennessee’s best kept secret to being hailed by the New York Times as one of America’s “most intriguing, fully formed new talents.”

When it came time to record the follow-up, June felt liberated by the success, fearless and more confident than ever in trusting her instincts and following her muse. There was to be no rushing the music, no harvesting a song before it was ripe on the vine and ready to be plucked. When she sensed the time was right, she headed to rural Guilford, Vermont, with producer Matt Marinelli, spending long stretches through the fall and winter living and recording away from the hustle and bustle of her adopted home of Brooklyn.

“They made us feel so welcome in Vermont,” remembers June. “I was cooking amazing food and hanging out with the band all the time. There were long talks and long walks in the snow, and friends would come up for holidays. I felt like I put myself in a place where I could really soar. With the last album, I was absorbing and learning and developing so much in the studio, but this is me taking the things I learned and the things I felt in my heart and fighting for them.”

In her heart, June is a songwriter first and foremost, willing and able to blur the lines between genres and eras of sounds. The result is an eclectic blend of folk and soul and country and R&B and blues that is undoubtedly the finest work of her career. Opener “Long Lonely Road” settles in like languid southern heat, as June looks back to the sacrifices of her parents and grandparents, singing in a gentle near-whisper of the sometimes difficult, sometimes beautiful journey we all must undertake in search of brighter days. On the soulful “Love You Once Made,” her voice is backed by rich horns and vintage organ as she makes peace with the specter of loss and the ephemeral nature of our relationships, while the bluesy juke joint rocker “Shakedown” features backup vocals from her brothers, Jason and Patrick Hockett and father, Emerson Hockett recorded at home in Tennessee, and “Man Done Wrong” centers on a hypnotic banjo riff that’s more African than Appalachian.

“People shouldn’t necessarily think of bluegrass when they see the banjo,” explains June. “It was originally an African instrument, and people in America used to play all kinds of banjo: mandolin banjo, ukulele banjo, bass banjo, classical banjo, jazz banjo, there were even banjo orchestras. For some reason people like to limit it and say it just has to be in folk and bluegrass, but to me it can be in anything, and I really wanted to set the banjo free on this record.”

The banjo turns up again later as the underpinning of the R&B rave-up “Got Soul,” which plays out like a mission statement for the entire album, as June offers to “sing a country tune” or “play the blues” but reveals that underneath it all is her sweet soul. Those genre terms might be simplistic ways to attempt to define her, empty signifiers creating distinctions between sounds where June sees none. “With You” channels the sprightly, ethereal beauty of Nico with fingerpicked electric guitar and cinematic strings, “Slip Slide On By” grooves with shades of Van Morrison, and “If And” slowly builds over meditative hum that hints at John Cale.

Despite the music’s varied nature, the songs all belong to a cohesive family, in part because they’re tied together by June’s one-of-a-kind voice, and because they’re all pieces of a larger rumination on the passage of time. The ultimate takeaway from tracks like “The Front Door” and “Just In Time” is that the present is all we have. We’re given this brief moment to share our love and light with the world, and when, as June sings on the album, “Time’s hands turn and point straight towards you,”
you’d better be ready.

Mavis Staples' Livin' On A High Note out Feb 19, Mavis! documentary screens on HBO Feb 26

Producer M Ward enlisted Nick Cave and other contemporary artists to write songs for Mavis Staples' new album. 

Mavis Staples is an alchemist of American music, and has continuously crossed genre lines like no musician since Ray Charles. Weaving herself into the very fabric of gospel, soul, folk, pop, R&B, blues, rock, and even hip hop over the better part of the last 60 years, the iconic singer has seen and sung through so many changes, always rising up to meet every road unwaveringly.

Along the way, she has learned from, worked with, and schooled countless legends from all arenas, and has brought her own timeless talent to each and every performance. Who else can claim to have answered the call time and time again, to become a leading voice of not just a generation, but of multiple eras and in myriad manifestations? Who else was there to sell a million gospel records, walk beside Dr. Martin Luther King, to help lead the ‘70s soul-power movement, to sing under the spotlight during The Last Waltz, to serve as muse to both Bob Dylan and Prince, and to win over 21st-century fans with a trio of deeply spiritual albums: 2007’s We’ll Never Turn Back 2010’s You Are Not Alone and 2013’s One True Vine.

With the release of her new album Livin’ On A High Note, she continues to gain momentum.  Referencing and drawing from her past while taking the music to fresh places, Mavis and her team recruited a unique dozen of today’s heralded and up-and-coming artists to write songs for the record including Nick Cave, Ben Harper, Tune-Yards, Benjamin Booker, Neko Case, Justin Vernon, Son Little, M. Ward—with Ward also tapped to produce the album in full. Conspicuously absent from the list of contributing writers is Jeff Tweedy who produced her last two albums.

“I’ve been singing my freedom songs and I wanted to stretch out and sing some songs that were new,” says Mavis. “I told the writers I was looking for some joyful songs. I want to leave something to lift people up; I’m so busy making people cry, not from sadness, but I’m always telling a part of history that brought us down and I’m trying to bring us back up. These songwriters gave me a challenge. They gave me that feeling of, ‘Hey, I can hang! I can still do this!’ There’s a variety, and it makes me feel refreshed and brand new. Just like Benjamin Booker wrote on the opening track (Take Us Back), ‘I got friends and I got love around me, I got people, the people who love me.’ I’m living on a high note, I’m above the clouds. I’m just so grateful. I must be the happiest old girl in the world. Yes, indeed.”

Listen to the title track High Note composed by talented Memphis singer/songwriter Valerie June followed by the trailer for Jessica Edwards' feature-length documentary Mavis!




Livin’ On A High Note (Anti-) 
Take Us Back (Benjamin Booker)
Love And Trust (Ben Harper)
If It’s A Light (The Head & The Heart)
Action (Tune-Yards)
High Note (Valerie June)
Don’t Cry (M. Ward)
Tomorrow (Aloe Blacc/John Batiste)
Dedicated (Justin Vernon/M. Ward)
History Now (Neko Case)
One Love (Son Little)
Jesus Lay Down Beside Me (Nick Cave)
MLK Song (M Ward/ Martin Luther King)