
Premier Guitar talks to certified music therapists across the U.S. about their specialized approaches to using guitar as an instrument of healing.
Over the course of just two months, guitarist Tom Peterson from Cincinnati, Ohio, was diagnosed with testicular cancer and lost both his job and the unborn child that he and his wife had been expectingātheir first. The one bright spot that year came at Christmastime, when Peterson received a special gift from his family: a PRS Mira that has since become the prize of his guitar collection for reasons difficult to quantify.
"You never think that this inanimate object is going to have such a mental connection with you and get you through your darkest hours," Peterson shared in PG's Conversations in the Key of Life podcast ("Episode 3: Guitar as Therapy," June 2016).
"I can't tell you how many timesāespecially dealing with the post-traumatic-stress aspect of things, when the triggers come aroundāthat I've just picked up the Mira, laid on my back, and plunked around on it. Nothing in particular ⦠just me and the guitar. When you feel like your body can't move on to do anything else, it seems like the musicāthat connectionādrives you just for that brief moment while you're contemplating that next string bend. You forget everything else."
But beyond the scores of untold private battles like Peterson's, where music becomes both shield and weapon against encroaching darkness, there are many other instances where guitar has played a more oblique role in therapy, whether through 6-string stars playing benefits for rehab centers, selling their instruments and donating the proceeds, or, in Eric Clapton's case, both. Anecdotes and superstars aside, the guitar has found a more institutional place in the healing process through the relatively new field of music therapy.
Roots and Branches
To get an overview and history of music therapy and understand the guitar's place in it, we chatted with health professionals who administer this treatment on a daily basis. One such person is Dr. Robert Krout, professor and director of music therapy in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Krout also teaches guitar online and has taught at the National Guitar Workshop, as well as guitar workshops around the world.
"Music therapy as a profession started in 1950," explains Krout. "You use music-based experiences in the relationship with the therapist to help achieve desired health outcomes, whether they be physical goals, social rehabilitation, helping with developmental issues, and so on."
Krout notes that people are usually referred to a music therapist by a psychiatrist, nurse, social worker, or health insurance company. The therapist then conducts a comprehensive assessment to see if the referred individual might benefit from music therapy. "The patient doesn't necessarily have to be able to play or sing," says Krout, "but the therapist would assess whether music might be beneficial for them based on their needs, and also based on how they respond to music either actively or passively."
Potential music-therapy beneficiaries run the gamut from parents anticipating an addition to their family to individuals who've recently lost a loved oneāand all sorts of related situations in between: Krout works with expectant mothers and couples in Lamaze training, using music to help with the timing of contractions. He also works with patients who are nearing the end of their lives or are in hospice care. Music therapy can also help bereaved siblings, spouses, children, grandchildren, and other survivors with grief healing. Meanwhile, music can often stimulate forgotten memories or buried emotions in patients with Alzheimer's or cognitive impairments. Music therapy can also be a great way to communicate with children on the autism spectrum, especially those who are nonverbal.
"I work with people with eating disorders, and often they have a series of verbal defenses that shield them from how they're feeling. When we do music-based experiences, many of those defenses fall away and they have an emotional reaction to the musicāeven when they try not to." āDr. Robert Krout
The work that Dr. Krout and others are doing with music therapy is often effective where other forms of therapy have come up shortāfor instance, with clients who lack the verbal skills to benefit from talk-based therapy. Further, it can often make inroads with patients who have highly developed verbal skills that have, for one reason or another, proved an impediment to treatment.
"I work with people with eating disorders, and often they have a series of verbal defenses that shield them from how they're feeling," says Krout. "When we do music-based experiences, many of those defenses fall away and they have an emotional reaction to the musicāeven when they try not to. We can sometimes use that emotional reaction to take the discussion deeper into some of the issues they're facing."
Music therapy has been found to be very helpful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), particularly that suffered by troops returning from combat. Thanks to George Hauerāwhose organization Operation: Music Aid supplies thousands of musical instruments to recovering military and armed forces personnelāwe chatted with music therapist Bobbi Blake about her experience working with veterans at a VA medical center in Connecticut. She began by explaining that music therapy had its beginnings in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs system after World War II.
"They found when they played music for the veterans it was very helpful in calming them down and soothing them," Blake says. "They started to investigate it more, and that began the music-therapy research in the '50s. There has been extensive research ever since. Now, they're doing neurological work on how music affects the brain. In working with veterans with PTSD, I'm trying to use music to help engage their coping skills and self-expression."
Like patients with eating disorders, PTSD patients often have a hard time expressing the multitude of profound, overwhelming feelings bubbling just beneath the surface. They can become socially isolated or be fearful of being around other people, crowds, and trying new things.
"Bringing them together to play music is a wonderful way to have them be with other people in a safe place and learn a skill that's going to help them with anxiety, mood swings, and relaxation," she adds.
Music therapy can play an important role in treating those with substance addictions. Paul Pellinger, one of the founders of Recovery Unplugged (a Florida-based rehab center), uses music to engage clients in different ways. For example, the center organizes live performances by famous musicians, who share stories and songs related to their own issues with drug addiction and alcoholism.
The program incorporates music as early as the pre-assessment process. Before being accepted, a prospective client is asked about his or her favorite genre of music. "If they say, 'classic rock,' I'll ask if there is a particular song that describes their life," says Pellinger. "When I pick them up [to bring them to the center], I have that song playing in the van. Right away, rapport is established and they feel heard versus being yelled at. When they get to our facility, we don't have to deal with a two-week adjustment to the new environment."
Like people with PTSD or eating disorders, many addicts have trouble accessing their emotions. But music can often be a gateway through those mental walls. "Identifying what you think or feel is an obstacle for most people in general, and it's especially difficult for addictsābut I guarantee you somebody has written a song about it," Pellinger says. "We often let song lyrics be the catalyst to verbalize what's going on. We're using music not only to engage the clients, but also to make recovery more of a payoff than using drugs. If you look at [a scan of] the brain after somebody takes a hit of crack cocaine, it lights up similar to how it does after hearing a simple chord change."
Guitar in Therapy
Dr. Robert Krout from Southern Methodist University (center) poses with a class that includes special-needs students at the Hope Town School on Elbow Cay island in the Bahamas.
When music therapy began in 1950, it traditionally employed piano as the accompanying instrument. But at the same time, electric and acoustic guitars were becoming mainstream instruments. Guitar gained more popularity and began to be used, in part, because it was portable. As a teacher of guitar, Krout has a unique view on the instrument's special place in music therapy.
"Clients of different ages and needs are very attracted to the guitarāthe look of it and sound of it," he says. "I've worked with emotionally disturbed teenagers who normally would not have any reason to relate to me, but if I walk in with a FenderĀ Stratocaster they relate to that. So the guitar can be used as the go-between. I do a lot of songwriting for music therapy, and the acoustic guitar is a musical instrument I can hold while sitting across from the client. They relate to the guitar, which creates a therapeutic space, and then we can safely do other things with singing, lyric discussion, or songwriting. With autism, it might be the way the guitar smells. A person with a psychiatric syndrome might have played guitar when they were younger, before the disease took over, and they connect to that."
To maximize effectiveness, Krout adapts his choices of instrument and songs to the background of the patient. For example, if a patient is a baby boomer, he may rely on the guitar-based music of the '60s. Meanwhile, if radio hits from the 1950s were the soundtrack of his nursing-home patients' youth, Krout might use Buddy Holly songs as an emotional connection.
The guitar also figures prominently in Blake's work with the Connecticut VA health system. Perhaps the country's best-known nonprofit working with veterans via the 6-string is Guitars for Vets, which provides a free guitar and lessons to veterans through local chapters set up all over the country from its base in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In contrast, Blake's Six Strings for Soldiers program is much smaller and locally focused, with more of an emphasis on the music-therapy side than on the guitar-centric aspects.
"With an instructor, the primary concern is about instrumental skills, like teaching someone how to play chords, rhythms, or notes," she says. "I'm more concerned about how playing guitar is helping them with their coping skills and stress."
Blake says one of the most rewarding parts of working with Six Strings for Soldiers is that patients use what they've learned when they return home. If they start to get anxious, they pick up the guitar and it calms them. She also finds that even small improvements in learning the instrument quickly reward patients with increased self-esteem.
"Within four weeks it's possible to teach somebody how to play some I-IV-V chord songs," says Blake. "And to accomplish that is very exciting! Guitar is, of course, very complicated to play wellāas any instrument isābut for a beginner it's very accessible. It can be particularly effective with isolation issues. It's empowering for socially isolated and fearful PTSD patients when they walk around with a guitar, because it's like walking a dog. People say, 'That's a nice dog' or 'What kind of dog is that?' Similarly, they say, 'You play guitar?' The patient may then say, 'Well, I'm learning,' and it encourages a conversation."
When they leave our facility, we don't just give them a certificate and coin and tell them not to drink, and to go to meetings." āPaul Pellinger
Meanwhile, Pellinger from Recovery Unpluggedāwhich has centers in Austin, Texas, and Fort Lauderdaleāhas yet another perspective. As the center's name implies, acoustic guitar figures prominently in its treatments. Three or four guitarists work full-time with the program. One of the musicians on staff is Richie Supa, a songwriter who has worked with Gladys Knight & the Pips, Bon Jovi, and Aerosmithāand who performs acoustic sets of songs about addiction and recovery for Recovery Unplugged patients.
But Recovery Unplugged clients don't just consume music, they can also make it. The centers offer musical workshops where Supa and other staff members help interested patients learn to create songs or take their guitar playing to the next level. Recovery Unplugged even found a way for clients to take their musical experiences home after completing treatment by providing a recording studio where patients can create soundtracks of their stay. The soundtracks can be any combination of prerecorded songs they've chosen, performances they've witnessed, or tunes they've performed or written.
"When they leave our facility, we don't just give them a certificate and coin and tell them not to drink, and to go to meetings," Pellinger says. "We give them earbuds and an MP3 player. Music is used as a catalyst for recovery, whether to help them be grateful, call their sponsor, or remember the consequences of using. For instance, Richie Supa wrote a song called 'I Got This.' That's one of the things addicts say when someone asks for their car keys because they are in no shape to driveā'Go away, I got this.' The song was on the soundtrack of a client who graduated from our treatment center. He was on his way to use drugs instead of going to a meeting. He was thinking, 'I got this,' when the song reminded him he didn't have 'this' and should go to a meeting."
Of course, Recovery Unplugged isn't the only music-therapy center that celebrates the unique attributes of flattops. SMU's Krout finds that acoustic guitar can work especially well with certain patients because of the physical vibrations they feel through the back of the instrument.
"With an electric guitar, the sounds are coming out of a speaker across the room," he explains. "Sitting across from a person with an acoustic guitar, it is the vibrations that actually connect us in that moment and create the shared therapeutic space."
Despite that advantage, Krout often uses electric guitars as well. "I worked with Fender for a number of years to bring the electric guitar into music therapy," he says. "We were trying to introduce music therapists to more contemporary sounds by using electric guitar."
Even so, not everyone relates to guitarāacoustic or electric. Krout says the instrument's popularity has fallen off a bit with younger patients in recent years, as it has become less the currency of popular musicāespecially in the inner city, where rap and hip-hop are often the music of choice.
"With teens, often I will work from an iPad using GarageBand. I use loops with hip-hop, electro, and techno types of sounds," Krout explains. "But many times they want to be doing something active, and even if they hadn't [previously] thought about being a guitarist, if I've got a guitar and they see me playing along with a GarageBand track, it might be attractive to them. I'm working with a young man now from India who is into Bollywood movies and soundtracks. We're working on guitar with very simple chords in the context of a huge Bollywood arrangement. It may just be guitar chords, but it feels like Bollywood to him."
Get Involved
For guitarists wanting to explore career alternatives that involve music and guitar, music therapy is a path worth considering. Therapists must meet educational and clinical training requirements set up by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). Graduates must take and pass a comprehensive exam administered by the Certification Board for Music Therapists in order to become certified music therapists (MT-BC), which qualifies them to work as a member of treatment teams in schools, hospitals, or nursing homes.
"You don't have to be a doctor or go to medical school, though you will learn about some medical conditions in a music-therapy program," says Blake, who achieved certification in the aforementioned manner. "It's music training combined with psychology." She adds that, just as medical doctors often specialize in certain areas, music therapists can, too. "I work at a VA hospital with veterans. Other therapists work with the elderly, kids with autism, pain management, people who are developmentally disabled, and so on. Depending on what you choose as a specialty, you may need advanced training to be able to work with that population."
According to the AMTA, music therapists must have a bachelor's degree or higher in music therapy from one of AMTA's 72 approved colleges and universities. They must also complete 1,200 hours of clinical training. Some states also require a license for board-certified music therapists.
Premier Guitar readers know the big and small ways in which playing guitar and listening to music can be therapeutic. The admirable work of music-therapy practitioners like Krout, Blake, and Pellinger is but a small sample of how the instrument we love is helping countless others.
[Updated 11/12/21]
- I'm Just Glad I've Got My Damn Guitars - Premier Guitar āŗ
- Last Call: Neal Casal and the Dangerous Thing We're Afraid to Talk ... āŗ
- Brothers and Sisters In Arms: Guitars for Vets - Premier Guitar āŗ
In challenging times, sometimes elemental music, like the late Jessie Mae Hemphillās raucous Mississippi hill country blues, is the best salve. It reminds us of whatās truly essentialāāmusically, culturally, and emotionally. And provides a restorative and safe place, where we can open up, listen, and experience without judgement. And smile.
Iāve been prowling the backroads, juke joints, urban canyons, and VFW halls for more than 40 years, in search of the rawest, most powerful and authentic American music. And among the many things Iāve learned is that whatās more interesting than the music itself is the people who make it.
One of the most interesting people Iāve met is the late Jessie Mae Hemphill. By the time my wife, Laurie Hoffma, and I met Jessie Mae, on a visit to her trailer in Senatobia, Mississippi, sheād had a stroke and retired from performing, but weād been fortunate to see her years before at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival, where she brought a blues style that was like quiet thunder, rumbling with portent and joy and ache, and all the other stuff that makes us human, sung to her own droning, rocking accompaniment on an old Gibson ES-120T.
To say she was from a musical family is an understatement. Her grandfather, Sid, was twice recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. While Sid played fiddle, banjo, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and more, he was best known as the leader of a fife-and-drum band that made music that spilled directly from Africaās main artery. Sid was Jessie Maeās teacher, and she learned well. In fact, you can see her leading her own fife-and-drum group in Robert Muggeās wonderful documentary Deep Blues(with the late musician and journalist Robert Palmer as on-screen narrator), where she also performs a mournful-but-hypnotic song about betrayalāsolo, on guitarāin Junior Kimbroughās juke joint.
That movie, a 1982 episode of Mr. Rogersā Neighborhood (on YouTube) where she appears as part of Othar Turnerās Gravel Springs fife-and-drum band, and worldwide festival appearances are as close as Jessie Mae ever got to fame, although that was enough to make her important and influential to Bonnie Raitt, Cat Power, and others. And she made two exceptional albums during her lifetime: 1981ās She-Wolf and 1990ās Feelinā Good. If youāre unfamiliar with North Mississippi blues, their sound will be a revelation. The style, as Jessie Mae essayed it, is a droning, hypnotic joy that bumps along like a freight train full of happily rattling box cars populated by carefree hobos. Often the songs ride on one chord, but that chord is the only one thatās needed to put the musicās joy and conviction across. Feelinā Good, in particular, is essential Jessie Mae. Even the songs about heartbreak, like āGo Back To Your Used To Beā and āShame on You,ā have a propulsion dappled with little bends and other 6-string inflections that wrap the listener in a hypnotic web. Listening to Feelinā Good, itās easy to disappear in the music and to have all your troubles vanish as wellāfor at least as long as its 14 songs last.āShe made it clear that she had a gunāa .44 with a pearl handle that took up the entire length of her handbag.ā
The challenge Iāve long issued to people unfamiliar with Jessie Maeās music is: āListen to Feelinā Good and then tell me if youāre not feeling happier, more cheerful, and relaxed.ā It truly does, as the old clichĆ© would have it, make your backbone slip and your troubles along with it. Especially uptempo songs like the scrappy title track and the charging āStreamline Train.ā Thereās also an appealing live 1984 performance of the latter on YouTube, with Jessie Mae decked out in leopard-print pants and vest, playing a tambourine wedged onto her left high-heel shoeāāone of her stylish signatures.
Jessie Mae was a complex person, caught between the old-school dilemma of playing āthe Devilās musicā and yearning for a spiritual life, sweet as pecan pie with extra molasses but quick to turn mean at any perceived slight. She also spent much of her later years in poverty, in a small trailer with a hole in the floor where mice and other critters got in. And she was as mistrustful of strangers as she was warm once she accepted you into her heart. But watch your step before she did. On our first visit to her home, she made it clear that she had a gunāa .44 with a pearl handle that took up the entire length of her handbag and would make Dirty Harry envious.
Happily, she took us into her heart and we took her into ours, helping as much as we could and talking often. She was inspiring, and I wrote a song about her, and even got to perform it for her in her trailer, which was just a little terrifying, since I knew she would not hold back her criticism if she didn't like it. Instead, she giggled like a kid and blushed, and asked if Iād write one more verse about the artifacts sheād gathered while touring around the world.
Jessie Mae died in 2006, at age 82, and, as happens when every great folk artist dies, we lost many songs and stories, and the wisdom of her experience. But you can still get a whiff of all thatāāif you listen to Feelinā Good.
This legendary vintage rack unit will inspire you to think about effects with a new perspective.
When guitarists think of effects, we usually jump straight to stompboxesātheyāre part of the culture! And besides, footswitches have real benefits when your hands are otherwise occupied. But real-time toggling isnāt always important. In the recording studio, where weāre often crafting sounds for each section of a song individually, thereās little reason to avoid rack gear and its possibilities. Enter the iconic Eventide H3000 (and its massive creative potential).
When it debuted in 1987, the H3000 was marketed as an āintelligent pitch-changerā that could generate stereo harmonies in a user-specified key. This was heady stuff in the ā80s! But while diatonic harmonizing grabbed the headlines, subtler uses of this pitch-shifter cemented its legacy. Patch 231 MICROPITCHSHIFT, for example, is a big reason the H3000 persists in racks everywhere. Itās essentially a pair of very short, single-repeat delays: The left side is pitched slightly up while the right side is pitched slightly down (default is ±9 cents). The resulting tripling/thickening effect has long been a mix-engineer staple for pop vocals, and itās also my first call when I want a stereo chorus for guitar.
The second-gen H3000S, introduced the following year, cemented the deviceās guitar bona fides. Early-adopter Steve Vai was such a proponent of the first edition that Eventide asked him to contribute 48 signature sounds for the new model (patches 700-747). Still-later revisions like the H3000B and H3000D/SE added even more functionality, but these days itās not too important which model you have. Comprehensive EPROM chips containing every patch from all generations of H3000 (plus the later H3500) are readily available for a modest cost, and are a fairly straightforward install.
In addition to pitch-shifting, there are excellent modulation effects and reverbs (like patch 211 CANYON), plus presets inspired by other classic Eventide boxes, like the patch 513 INSTANT PHASER. A comprehensive accounting of the H3000ās capabilities would be tedious, but suffice to say that even the stock presets get deliciously far afield. There are pitch-shifting reverbs that sound like fever-dream ancestors of Strymonās āshimmerā effect. There are backwards-guitar simulators, multiple extraterrestrial voices, peculiar foreshadows of the EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid and Rainbow Machine (check out patch 208 BIZARRMONIZER), and even button-triggered Foley effects that require no input signal (including a siren, helicopter, tank, submarine, ocean waves, thunder, and wind). If youāre ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000ās singular knob makes a pretty good substitute. (Spin the big wheel and find out what youāve won!)
āIf youāre ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000ās singular knob makes a pretty good substitute.ā
But thereās another, more pedestrian reason I tend to reach for the H3000 and its rackmount relatives in the studio: I like to do certain types of processing after the mic. Itās easy to overlook, but guitar speakers are signal processors in their own right. They roll off high and low end, they distort when pushed, and the cabinets in which theyāre mounted introduce resonances. While this type of de facto processing often flatters the guitar itself, it isnāt always advantageous for effects.
Effects loops allow time-based effects to be placed after preamp distortion, but I like to go one further. By miking the amp first and then sending signal to effects in parallel, I can get full bandwidth from the airy reverbs and radical pitched-up effects the H3000 can offerāand I can get it in stereo, printed to its own track, allowing the wet/dry balance to be revisited later, if needed. If a sound needs to be reproduced live, thatās a problem for later. (Something evocative enough can usually be extracted from a pedal-form descendant like the Eventide H90.)
Like most vintage gear, the H3000 has some endearing quirks. Even as it knowingly preserves glitches from earlier Eventide harmonizers (patch 217 DUAL H910s), it betrays its age with a few idiosyncrasies of its own. Extreme pitch-shifting exhibits a lot of aliasing (think: bit-crusher sounds), and the analog Murata filter modules impart a hint of warmth that many plug-in versions donāt quite capture. (They also have a habit of leaking black goo all over the motherboard!) Itās all part of the charm of the unit, beloved by its adherents. (Well, maybe not the leaking goo!)
In 2025, many guitarists wonāt be eager to care for what is essentially an expensive, cranky, decades-old computer. Even the excitement of occasional tantalum capacitor explosions is unlikely to win them over! Fortunately, some great software emulations existāEventideās own plugin even models the behavior of the Murata filters. But hardware offers the full hands-on experience, so next time you spot an old H3000 in a rack somewhereāand youāve got the timeāfire it up, wait for the distinctive āclickā of its relays, spin the knob, and start digging.
A live editor and browser for customizing Tone Models and presets.
IK Multimedia is pleased to release the TONEX Editor, a free update for TONEX Pedal and TONEX ONE users, available today through the IK Product Manager. This standalone application organizes the hardware library and enables real-time edits to Tone Models and presets with a connected TONEX pedal.
You can access your complete TONEX library, including Tone Models, presets and ToneNET, quickly load favorites to audition, and save to a designated hardware slot on IK hardware pedals. This easy-to-use application simplifies workflow, providing a streamlined experience for preparing TONEX pedals for the stage.
Fine-tune and organize your pedal presets in real time for playing live. Fully compatible with all your previous TONEX library settings and presets. Complete control over all pedal preset parameters, including Global setups. Access all Tone Models/IRs in the hardware memory, computer library, and ToneNET Export/Import entire libraries at once to back up and prepare for gigs Redesigned GUI with adaptive resize saves time and screen space Instantly audition any computer Tone Model or preset through the pedal.
Studio to Stage
Edit any onboard Tone Model or preset while hearing changes instantly through the pedal. Save new settings directly to the pedal, including global setup and performance modes (TONEX ONE), making it easy to fine-tune and customize your sound. The updated editor features a new floating window design for better screen organization and seamless browsing of Tone Models, amps, cabs, custom IRs and VIR. You can directly access Tone Models and IRs stored in the hardware memory and computer library, streamlining workflow.
A straightforward drop-down menu provides quick access to hardware-stored Tone Models conveniently sorted by type and character. Additionally, the editor offers complete control over all key parameters, including FX, Tone Model Amps, Tone Model Cabs/IR/VIR, and tempo and global setup options, delivering comprehensive, real-time control over all settings.
A Seamless Ecosystem of Tones
TONEX Editor automatically syncs with the entire TONEX user library within the Librarian tab. It provides quick access to all Tone Models, presets and ToneNET, with advanced filtering and folder organization for easy navigation. At the same time, a dedicated auto-load button lets you preview any Tone Model or preset in a designated hardware slot before committing changes.This streamlined workflow ensures quick edits, precise adjustments and the ultimate flexibility in sculpting your tone.
Get Started Today
TONEX Editor is included with TONEX 1.9.0, which was released today. Download or update the TONEX Mac/PC software from the IK Product Manager to install it. Then, launch TONEX Editor from your applications folder or Explorer.
For more information and videos about TONEX Editor, TONEX Pedal, TONEX ONE, and TONEX Cab, visit:
www.ikmultimedia.com/tonexeditor
Valerie Juneās songs, thanks to her distinctive vocal timbre and phrasing, and the cosmology of her lyrics, are part of her desire to āco-create a beautiful lifeā with the world at large.
The world-traveling cosmic roots rocker calls herself a homebody, but her open-hearted singing and songwritingāāin rich display on her new album Owls, Omens, and Oraclesāāwelcomes and embraces inspiration from everything ⦠including the muskrat in her yard.
I donāt think Iāve ever had as much fun in an interview as I did speaking with roots-rock artist Valerie June about her new release, Owls, Omens, and Oracles. At the end of our conversation, after going over schedule by about 15 minutes, her publicist curbed us with a gentle reminder. In fairness, maybe we did spend a bit too much time talking about non-musical things, such as Seinfeld, spirituality, and the fauna around her home in Humboldt, Tennessee.
Ā YouTube
If youāre familiar with Juneās sound, you know how effortlessly she stands out from the singer-songwriter pack. Her equal-parts warm, reedy, softly Macy Gray-tinged singing voice imprints on her as many facets as a radiant-cut emeraldāand it possesses the trademark sincerity heard in the most distinctive of singer/songwriters. Her music, overall, brilliantly shines with a spirited, contagiously uplifting glow.
Owls, Omens, and Oracles opens with āJoy, Joy!ā with producer M. Ward rocking lead guitar over strings (June plays acoustic on nearly all of the tracks and banjo on one). It then recurringly dips into ā50s doo-wop chord changes, blends chugging, at times funky rock rhythms with saxophones and horns, bursts with New Orleans-style brass on āChangedā (which features gospel legends the Blind Boys of Alabama), and explores a slow soul groove with electronic guest DJ Cavem Moetavation on āSuperpower.ā Bright Eyesā multi-instrumentalist Nate Walcott helmed the arrangements with guidance from Ward and June, and frequently appears on piano and Hammond organ, while Norah Jones supports with backing vocals on the folk lullaby āSweet Things Just for You.ā The entire album was recorded live to tape, which was a new experience for June.
June shares her perspective on the album and her work, overall. āItās not ever complete or finished, your study of art,ā she offers. āItās an adventure, and it keeps getting prettier as you walk through the meadow of creating or learning new things. Every artist that you bring in has a different way of performing with you, or the audience might be really talkative or super quiet. And all of that shapes the artāso itās ever-expansive. Itās pretty infinite [laughs], where art can take you and where it goes.... I kinda got lost there a little bit,ā she muses, laughing.Juneās favored acoustic guitar is this Martin 000-15M, with mahogany top, back, and sides.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
June didnāt connect with guitar in the beginning, but discovered her passion for it later, when the instrument became a vehicle for her self-empowerment. She took lessons as a teenager but was a distracted student, preferring to listen to her teacher share the history of blues guitarists like Big Bill Broonzy and Mississippi John Hurt. āI didnāt pick it up again until I was in my early 20s, and my band that I was in with my ex fell apart,ā she says. āI still was singing and I still was hearing these beautiful voices sing me these songs, and I didnāt want to never be able to perform them. It was a terrible feeling, to be ⦠musically stranded.
āAnd I was like, āNow, I could go get a new band and get some more accompaniment, but how ābout I get my tail in there and keep my promise to my granddad who gave me that first guitar and actually learn how to play it, so Iāll never feel like this again.ā The goal was that I would never be musically stranded again.ā
She became a solo performer, learning lap steel and banjo along with guitar, and called her style āorganic moonshine roots music.ā Today, she eschews picks for fingers, even when strumming chords, and is a vital blues-and-folk based stylist when she lays into her playingāespecially in a live,solo setting. After two self-released albums, 2006ās The Way of the Weeping Willow and 2008ās Mountain of Rose Quartz, she connected with the Black Keysā Dan Auerbach, who recorded and produced her 2013 album, Pushinā Against Stone, at Nashvilleās Easy Eye Sound, which helped launch her now-flourishing career.
Valerie Juneās Gear
Guitars
Amps
- Fender Deluxe Reverb
Effects
- TC Electronic Hall of Fame
- MXR X Third Man Hardware Double Down booster
- J. Rockett Audio Archer boost/overdrive
Strings
- DāAddario XL Nickel Regular Light (.010ā.046)
- Martin Marquis Silked Phosphor Bronze (.012ā.054
Photo by Travys Owen
As we talk about art being a shared experience, June says she can be a bit of a hermit at times, but āwhen itās time to share the art, then there you are. Even if youāre a painter and you just put your painting on a wall and walk away, thatās an interaction that brings you out of your studio or your bedroom to understand this whole act of co-creatingāwhich to me is a spiritual act anyway. Thatās why weāre here, to really understand those rules and layers to life. How do we co-create together?
āAnd I think itās soĀ fun,ā she enthuses. āI enjoy learning, even when itās hard. Iām like, āOkay, this chord is killing me right now, or this phrase.... but Iāma stick with it. And then that likens to something that I might face when I go out into the world. Iām like, āAll right, I can get through this.āā
I suggest, āWhen you say āco-creating,ā it sounds like you mean something bigger.ā
āBoth in the creation of our art, but also in the creation of a life,ā June replies. āāCause how can a life be something this artistic? You get to the end of it and youāre like, āWow, look at what I co-created! With all these other people, with animals, with nature, with sound thatās all around....ā All of my life has been a piece of art or a collective creation. I imagine them like books: different lives on a shelf. And you go pick oneāāWhoa! I created a pretty fun one there!ā or, āOh, man, I had no hand in that....ā Close the book, next one!ā she concludes, laughing as she illustrates the metaphor with her hands.
āSo does that make all of your inspirations your co-creators?ā I ask.
Valerie June at one of her several Newport Folk Festival appearances, with her trusty Gold Tone banjo
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
āYeah! Even if theyāve gone before,ā says June. āI was listening to some beautiful classical music the other day, and I was like, āMan, I donāt know who any of these artists are; theyāre all dead and gone, but Iām just enjoying it and itās putting me in a zone that I need to be in right now.ā So, weāre always leaving these little seeds for even those who are coming after us to be inspired by.ā
Some of her current non-musical co-creators are poets and authors, such as the poet Hafez, the philosopher Audre Lorde, poet Mary Oliver, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi botanist whose works include Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.
āItās not ever complete or finished, your study of art. Itās an adventure, and it keeps getting prettier as you walk through the meadow of creating or learning new things.ā
āThese books are so beautiful and show the relationship of humanity with nature and the way trees speak with each other; the way moss communicates to itself,ā June explains. āThose ways of being can help humans, who always think we know so much, to learn how to work together better.ā
As sheās sharing, I see her glance out her window. āRight now, I just saw a muskrat go across the pond,ā she continues. āItās about this big [holds hands about three feet apart] and it digs holes in the yard. Itās having such a great time and Iām just like, āOkay, you are huge, and Iām walking through the yard and falling in holes because of you [laughs]. Iām just watching you live your best life!ā And then there was a blue heron that came yesterday, and I watched it eat fish.... Theyāre my friends!ā she exclaims, with more laughter.
Valerie June believes in the power of flowersāand all living thingāas her creative collaborators.
It might seem like weāre getting a bit off subject, but itās residents of nature like these who are important in her creative process.
I share how, in my own approach to art, I feel as though we can always access creativity and our ideals, as long as we stay receptive to experiencing and sharing in them. June agrees, but comments that sometimes her best self only wants to sit and focus: āNo more information; no more downloads, please.ā
An encounter with Memphis-based blues guitarist Robert Belfour, who June frequently saw perform, expanded that perspective for her. She shares about a time she went up to him after a show: āI was like, āHey, I would love to work with you on some music and maybe we could co-write a song or something.ā He was like, āNope! I donāt wanna do it.ā And I said, āWhaaat?ā And heās like, āNo. I do what I do, and I do not do what anybody else does; I just do what I do.āā
Sometimes, she says, āI think thatās just as much of an outlook to have with creating as anything. Itās like, āOkay, Iām there, Iām where I wanna be. I donāt want to be anywhere else.āā
āThatās why weāre here, to really understand those rules and layers to life. How do we co-create together?ā
Part of whatās so enjoyable about speaking with June is realizing that she truly exists on her own plane. She has no pretense, and in that, doesnāt hide some of the fears that weigh on her mind at times. But she doesnāt let those define her. Itās her easy, exuberant optimism that sparks a feeling of friendship between us, without having known each other before that afternoon. What are some of her guiding principles as an artist, I wonder?
āI sit with the idea of, āWho am I creating this for?āā she says, āand returning to the fact that Iām doing this for me, and, as Gillian Welch said, āIām gonna do it anyway even if it doesnāt pay.ā This is what I wanna do. And reflecting on that and letting that kind of be my guiding force. Itās just something that I enjoy, that I really wanna do.ā
YouTube It
From there, the conversation meanders in other directions, and June even generously asks me a few questions about my own artistic beliefs. We share about trusting your gut instinct, and walking away from situations and people who donāt serve us. This reminds her of a bigger feeling.
āWith everything that these times hold for us as humans,ā she shares, āfrom the inequality that we face to the environmental change, the political climate, and all the things that could lead us to fear or negativity.... I started to think about it, and Iām like, āOkay, well, maybe we are fucked! Maybe the planet is going to eject us and all of the other things are gonna come true! Well, if thatās whatās gonna happen, who do I wanna be?ā
āI want to go out in a way thatās sweet or kind to other people, enjoying this experience, these last moments, and building togetherness through music. I want to co-create a beautiful life even in the face of all of that. Thatās what I want to do.ā