Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Singer, songwriter Valerie June has built a reputation for weaving elements of folk, blues, gospel, and soul into her music. Now she's returned with her latest album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles. Produced by folk musician M. Ward, the 14-track album features vocals from The Blind Boys of Alabama to Norah Jones. It also features an excerpt from Valerie's book, Maps for the Modern World, which is a collection of poems and original illustrations about cultivating community, perfect for National Poetry Month.

Owls, Omens, and Oracles was released on April 11th. With me now in studio is Valerie June to perform a special live performance and to discuss the album's inspiration. By the way, she will also be at the Town Hall on Tuesday, May 6. I am so happy to see you in person.

Valerie June: Happy to see you in person. Last time was on the phone.

Alison Stewart: I know. In person's better.

Valerie June: Yes.

Alison Stewart: In person is better. Tell us about the first song we're going to hear, Endless Tree.

Valerie June: Endless Tree is a song of togetherness. Trees have a hidden language that connects them to one another, whether they be a cypress, a willow, an oak, or an elm. I think that we can learn a lot from nature. We can learn a lot from plants. They're old, they're wise, they're gorgeous, they're beautiful, and so they guided me to this song and I'm sharing the message with you.

Alison Stewart: This is Valerie June with Endless Tree.

[MUSIC - Valerie June: Endless Tree]

Valerie June: Are you ready to see

A world where we could all be free

As branches of an endless tree

May we seek and find it

Although we might not all agree

Still live together peacefully

Watching the news almost every night

Telling the stories of all that ain't right

But what could be done from a house and a home

Sink in the sofa and feel so alone

Getting the courage to do something small

Lifting the spirits of all that you saw

Feeling the tiniest spark in your heart

'Cause only an ember can light up the dark

Are you ready to see

A world where we could all be free

As branches of an endless tree

May we seek and find it

Although we might not all agree

Still live together peacefully

Are you ready

Are you ready

People get people get people get ready

Ready, ready

Tell me my brother how love goes around

Neighbor to neighbor we create a town

City to country a nation is formed

Person to person kindness is born

There is a beauty in the number one

Just like the moon and just like the sun

So if you're on the couch and you're feeling alone

May you feel moved after hearing this song

Are you ready to see

A world where we could all be free

As branches of an endless tree

May we seek and find it

Although we might not all agree

Still live together peacefully

Are you ready

Are you ready

People get people get people get ready

Are you ready

Wanna be ready

I wanna be ready

I want to be ready

I wanna be ready

I wanna be ready

Ready to see

A world where we could all be free

As branches of an endless tree

May we seek and find it

Although we might not all agree

Still live together peacefully

Alison Stewart: That was beautiful. That was Valerie June off her new album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles with Endless Tree. You started telling us before you performed that about how we could learn so much from the trees. When you think about nature and you think about it as an inspiration, what is it about nature that's inspiring to you?

Valerie June: Well, first off, beauty. My aunt ran for Congress a few years ago in Indiana. She didn't win, but I was invited out to be a singer at a fundraiser for her. She was asking me about politics in my music, and I said, "Well, really, my number one way of being political is singing about beautiful things, and I don't really do much besides that." She said, "Well, everything's political. Beauty is political. Everything." It kind of hit me that, yes, beauty is political, especially in this time where we face so much with the environment and the climate and everything, trees and nature.

Just simply being a gorgeous daffodil or a tulip on the street is an act of beauty, but also a political force. Learning that from my great aunt [chuckles] helped me to see how beauty connects to the way we interact with each other and how we can learn a lot from our wise teachers, these ancient trees that are around us all the time. I like to visit forests up and down the coast and all over the world wherever I go to learn from them.

Alison Stewart: It also sounds like your aunt's a great mentor.

Valerie June: She is, believe it or not. She's so gentle. Thank God for that. She's a great mentor.

Alison Stewart: The album's title is Owls, Omens, and Oracles. It sounds sort of mystical, a little bit spiritual, if you like that. What's behind the album's title?

Valerie June: Well, in Tennessee, I have a place on my family land, and we've been there for 30 years, my family, and I see all kinds of animals because there's a pond behind our house. We have muskrats and snakes and frogs and everything you can imagine. Never have I seen an owl until the last year and a half. I'm talking 30 years and no owl, but the last year and a half, three times I was visited by an owl. I was just like, "Okay, I have to figure out what is this owl messenger trying to tell me."

I looked it up in many different ways, and the first thing is that they represent wisdom, and then they represent being able to see in the darkness and they carry mystery. They have excellent vision. I started to really see what does that mean for me personally, but what does it also mean for us as human beings and the way that we can move through or navigate any dark times we might be facing collectively and individually. That's what the owl represents to me.

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting. My late mom, in her college yearbook, had a little owl, a little pen-drawn owl underneath her, and people have given me owls.

Valerie June: I love it.

Alison Stewart: I have a owl on my bookshelf, I have them all over my house. It's so interesting to hear that it went to you-- you saw it three times?

Valerie June: Yes, three times, and by the third time, I was like, okay, when I see something three times, because I do follow signs in my life, from a rainbow to a butterfly, to sometimes bad omens too, like that mojo and juju from old blues singers. They got the hoodoo and the mojo working. I'm all about studying that. When I saw it three times, I was like, "Okay, I have a lesson here." Then, this weekend I was touring in Richmond, Virginia, and I walked into a vintage shop, because I like to do that when I'm on the road, and there were all these owl necklaces and rings and stuff.

The lady was like, "Yes, what do you call a group of owls?" I couldn't think of it off the top of my head, but it's called a wisdom. Isn't that cool? I mean, it's just the simplest thing, but [laughs] it matters.

Alison Stewart: You learn something new every day. My guest is Valerie June. Her new album is Owls, Omens, and Oracles. When you sat down to think about this album, what challenges did you make for yourself? This album I'm going to, what? I'm going to challenge myself how?

Valerie June: Well, I'm going to challenge myself to finally be brave enough to reach out to a musician that I admire and respect and have been a fan of for years, M. Ward, and if he says no, he says no, but if he says yes, he says yes. The first time I mentioned it to him was at Newport Folk Festival. We were both on the same day on the same bill, and I said, "M, I would love for you to produce a record for me sometime," and he said, "Oh, yes, I'm down." He very well could have said no, because I've received a lot of rejections from collaborations in the past, so I was scared.

Even with Norah. Norah Jones is on the record, and she's very good friends with M and me, and I could have asked her myself, but I was nervous, so I said, "M, do you mind asking Nora if she'll sing on this song?" She said, "Absolutely. I'll sing on Sweet Things.

Alison Stewart: What did you learn about yourself from those two lessons?

Valerie June: Don't be afraid to ask. Even if the person says no, just go for it, because it doesn't end a friendship or anything. People are busy, and I don't know why I was so nervous about receiving a yes or a no. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: A lot of music critics use the word warm or sincere in your singing voice. How did you develop comfort in singing the way you do, in your warmth, in your sincerity, how did you develop comfort and confidence?

Valerie June: Really, I feel the most confident in my voice now than I ever have. Many years were spent, when I first started singing in public, just trying to fit my voice into what was heard on the radio or what was acceptable for people or palatable. I then started to really notice what voices I gravitated toward, and I gravitated toward people like Tom Waits or Karen Dalton or Joanna Newsom or Memphis Minnie, and they have shrill, kind of squeaky, kind of edgy, kind of make you feel something voices.

Even my favorite songs from Etta James aren't the polished ones. They're the gritty ones. I think we need beautiful, polished, gorgeous voices. I love those. I have a lot of them, even on this record with Blind Boys and many. We also need voices that reflect the imperfections and emotion and just make us feel some rawness and make it break our hearts open, sometimes make us ask the question, do I like that or don't I like that? How do I feel? Do I feel something today?

Just being really in our feelings and our emotions in a song is something that takes me away and captivates me, so I felt like, "Okay, I'm not going to sound like everybody on the radio. I'm probably not going to get played much on mainstream radio. I don't mind that, but I'm going to be me." I just fully walked into it with this record, and I just said, you know what? On a song like Trust the Path, I'm singing, we took everything live, and there's a crack and a break in my breath and in my voice, and we didn't throw it out. We actually absolutely love that.

I cannot repeat it ever again. That moment is just like this photograph in time vocally, and so having those moments is what really I like about an album and I like about voices.

Alison Stewart: You also have the confidence to just be you.

Valerie June: [laughs] Yes. Yes.

Alison Stewart: When you're young, you sort of shift, you try to fit in, but as you get older, you understand, like, "I'm me, and if you like it, great. If you don't, there's other stuff." [laughs]

Valerie June: True. That's why there's so much great music in the world for people to enjoy. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Let's hear another tune. We'd like to hear Joy, Joy!. Tell us a little bit about this before we hear it.

Valerie June: Well, I really enjoy singing Joy, Joy! because it's kind of like a mantra for me these days. I need to. I wake up in the morning mean. I wake up mean. Until I get my 10 cups of tea, you don't want to see me now. Grumpy and grouchy. Then, as I go through the day, I realize joy is a practice and we have to have joy in our day. It doesn't necessarily mean you're happy, but it means you got joy in your heart.

[MUSIC - Valerie June: Joy, Joy!]

Valerie June: There is a light you can see

That is wanting to be free

A hidden light deep inside

Learn to trust your spirit guide

There is a light you can find

If you stop to take the time

Know when it's right, rise and shine

The seas will part, the stars align

You'll find that joy, joy in your soul

You'll find that joy, joy in your soul

You'll find that joy, joy in your soul

You'll find that joy, that joy, that joy

That joy, that joy, that joy, that-

And when you feel you're not enough

Has this old world been hard and rough

A golden seed beneath dark soil

To seek the sun is often rough

And when you'll flower know not the hour

An ever present superpower

An effervescence from below

No one can tell, just trust and grow

You'll find that joy, joy in your soul

You'll find that joy, joy in your soul

You'll find that joy, joy in your soul

Oh, you'll find that joy, that joy, that joy

That joy, that joy, that joy, that joy

There was that thing not long ago

When I thought I lost my glow

'Cause looking out at everything

Twas on a tight rope balancing

The wind, it came and knocked me off

And then I fell into your stream

The waves reflect my inner flow

I found that joy, joy in my soul

I found that joy, joy in my soul

Yeah, I found that joy, joy in my soul

Well, I found that joy, joy in my soul

Oh, I found that joy, that joy, that joy

That joy, that joy, that joy, that joy, that joy

That, ah, that joy, that joy, that joy, that joy

There is a light you can see

That is wanting to be free

Alison Stewart: My guest is Valerie June. Her new album is titled Owls, Omens, and Oracles. It's National Poetry Month. That's an amazing thing.

Valerie June: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Also considering your album has excerpts from your poems and your illustrations titled Maps for the Modern World. Do you write poetry? How does it help you as a musician?

Valerie June: Wow. Well, I do write poetry. I just started writing poetry when my father died. That was about six years ago. Before that, I only wrote songs. I get songs as I do other things, so I need to be busy to write songs. I can't really just sit down and write a song and say, "I'm going to write a song today." No, I need to be driving, I need to be cleaning, I need to be folding clothes or sleeping sometimes, whatever. They come, and I stop what I'm doing when they come, and I sing what's sung to me. They come with melodies. They come sung to me."

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Valerie June: Like you turn on the radio and someone sings to you, that's how they sing in my head. When I started to get poems, I was at first very confused because it was a voice and it wasn't singing. It was more just a rhythmic tone of spoken word. I started writing it down, and I got 150 or 200 of them. I was like, "These are poems. They have absolutely no melody. They're only spoken word. I hear them." After I got a collection of them, I gave them to my friends. She's New York Times best-selling author Amanda Lucidon, and she said, "Well, I love these. I'm going to give them to my agent."

She gave them to her agent, her agent gave them to the publishing company, and they absolutely loved them enough to put them out. I illustrated 100 illustrations and put the poems together with the illustration similar to Shel Silverstein or Rupi Kaur. I'm on the same publishing company with Rupi and Tank and the Bangas and different creatives like that. I love having that side to my life, and I know the difference because of how I receive the piece.

Alison Stewart: Had you ever had that poetry voice come to you before?

Valerie June: No.

Alison Stewart: Really?

Valerie June: It started when my father passed. Yes. That was a different-- at first, when it started to come, I was like, "Am I not going to get any more songs? Has it changed for me?" But no, I still get songs too. Some of the songs on this record are old. They're maybe 20 years, 15 years old to me, others are one year or two years older to me, because I just write when I receive things, and it just goes in my collection. Then, when I get ready to make a record, I'll look at what's jumping off the page, and I pull the ones that are like, "Me, me, me," and I put them together. Then, I go back after I made the record, which is probably not so smart, I probably should do this before, but I say, "Well, what's the theme?" That's when I get the title. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Do you feel that the poetry came from your father?

Valerie June: Maybe. Maybe he opened, I think, a door for many of my other ancestors too, because after that, gran passed, and then my Uncle Jean and my best friend of 20 years, and I feel a very connectedness to my spirits in the other world, where there'll be a street sign or there'll be a butterfly, or there'll be some signs that I know that their presence is still with me.

Maybe they opened it up so that now I hear from my other ancestors that I didn't know that I have some pictures of, which I've posted on Instagram and different things. My ancestors who would have been enslaved even, which is a treasure to have those photos because many of our lives were so displaced in the African American community that we don't have that history. I post and share some of those stories about my family, and I really hope that some of the voices are from my own family line. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Where do you call home now?

Valerie June: I call home Brooklyn and Tennessee. [chuckles] I go back and forth, and I have for the last decade, between Bed Stuy and Humboldt, Tennessee, my little shack by the pond.

Alison Stewart: What happens to you in your little shack by the pond in Humboldt, Tennessee?

Valerie June: Well, really, it's so tiny, sharecropping shacks where they kind of look like they're falling apart and have shotgun railroad style. In there, there's not really much room to do anything but play my guitar and make tea and look out the window at all the animals that come to visit.

Alison Stewart: What's that like for you living in such a city environment and a country environment?

Valerie June: I love it. It's been a while, actually, that my life has been divided like that. Pretty much since I moved to New York, I've kept my life separated in the countryside. I need it. I found I need it because I love fashion and I love just being able to walk out on the street in New York and be inspired just from looking at people, and also the accessibility of, "Oh my God, I need something that color right now." Socks, a ring, something, and going and finding something that's got a magical color to it that we don't always have in my area. It's really nice to have that.

In the area I'm at, I can go out and collect clovers, which I have a nice four leaf clover collection. I can grow the plants that I want to grow in the actual ground and put my fingers in the ground, which doesn't really happen much up here. I do have a lot of plants up here too. I have a lot of plants. [chuckles] I love plants. Plants are kind of like my animals because people are like, "Do you have pets?" I'm like, "No, I'm on the road too much." I have plants, and I put bottles in there to feed them. I have a partner and my mom that help me with the plants as well.

Alison Stewart: You're going to be on tour. You're going to be at the Town Hall on May 6. Tell me a little bit about the tour.

Valerie June: Well, I cannot wait to be at Town Hall because that venue is gorgeous. It's one of the most gorgeous venues that I have ever performed at. I love the history of it being the lecture hall and all the musicians who've come through there. When I go there, this will be, I think, my second or third time at Town Hall. I always think, "Oh my God, I think I'm almost famous." You know that movie, Almost Famous? I feel like that when I go up in there, and it's so exciting.

Then, from there, we're going to go up north and we'll be all in Maine and Connecticut in different areas. Then, we'll come back and we'll go to the middle to Chicago, Detroit, all the way down to Louisville, Nashville, Iowa, and all in the middle. Then, we'll go on the West Coast, and we'll start in San Diego and end in Seattle. I love that West Coast drive. That, to me, is my nature connection. I go to Muir Woods when I'm out there. I go visit all of the redwood trees. I go visit Douglas firs over there on the West Coast.

I just love watching the plants change as I move across the country and the world. That's pretty much been the joy of my life for the last, I would say maybe a little more than a decade I've been able to tour and explore, live out of my suitcase. You're like, "Where do you live?" I'm like, [inaudible 00:25:06] [crosstalk] on the road. I'm all over this place.

Alison Stewart: The name of the album is Owls, Omens, and Oracles. My guest has been Valerie June. You're going to play us out on a song. What are we going to hear?

Valerie June: Wow. Well, I guess I'll play you another one. I played you Joy, Joy!, I played you Endless Tree.

Alison Stewart: Love Me Any Ole Way?

Valerie June: Yes. We're doing it.

Alison Stewart: All right.

Valerie June: On it.

Alison Stewart: She's doing it.

Valerie June: At Town Hall, we're going to have the horns showing out on this one. We got the best horn players in the world.

[MUSIC - Valerie June: Love Me Any Ole Way]

Valerie June: Love me any ole way

Morning, noon, night or day

No matter what folk may say

Just love me any ole way

Love me when I am down

Love me when I am weak

Especially when I'm in need

Don't pack your bags or try to leave

Just love me any ole way

Any way that you feel

Love me any ole way, mm

Just as long as it's real

Don't try to make it all just right

Don't shine the rust or hide the light

Just be true and keep it real

Oh, a heart that aches is a heart that feels

Love me when I am broke

When I'm lost and seeking hope

In the darkness, hold my hand

Tell me you understand

Just love me any ole way

Any way that you feel

Love me any ole way, mm

Just as long as it's real

Just love me any ole way

Any way that you feel

Love me any ole way, mm

Just as long as it's real

As it's real

As it's real

As it's real

As it's real