Valerie June
The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers

If three clues make a proof, at this point I have the proof that Valerie June, with «The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers», has produced a great album.

What makes a great album? For me, the voice, the sound, and the emotions are essential: in this case, Valerie and her band bring the voice and sound, and the emotions are always my own matter.

First clue: the voice.

Valerie has an extraordinary voice – between childlike and nasal, the first impact is unsettling – and often I get tired of extraordinary voices and soon get weary of everything that revolves around that voice: for instance, certain live performances of Bob Dylan, something of Neil Young, everyone has their quirks.

I “met” Valerie about ten years ago, around the time of «Pushin' Against a Stone», her third album produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys in 2013, when getting an album produced by Auerbach meant you had made it and could start living off it: initially, I listened to that album sparingly but soon got tired of it, because of Valerie’s voice, even though the music wasn't bad, a sort of blues, country, and folk electrified and delivered with decent vigor.

To be honest, in those months it seemed to me like an album that belonged more to Auerbach than to Valerie, maybe she didn’t have an imposing personality.

Then it happens that, a few years later, I return to that album and fall in love with a track, the one that closes the album, «Somebody to Love»: Valerie plays it with a full setup – guitar, bass, drums, and more – at the beginning of the album; but, at the end, she picks up the ukulele and in perfect solitude offers an acoustic version.

If I’d say the electrified version is not bad, the unplugged version then and now seems breathtakingly beautiful; due to her voice, of course.

It’s as if, in the end, she felt overwhelmed by Auerbach and decided to do something “hers,” to take the first steps along another path, meaning Valerie has plenty of personality, no doubt about it.

That path lasts four years for Valerie and leads to an album that is «Order of Time». Bob Dylan, for Valerie and for that album, spends a few but sincere words of admiration, maybe it's that with age, character softens, more likely Valerie’s talent begins to sparkle.

I, engaged in other matters, missed that album and found Valerie again just a few weeks ago and in eight years everything or almost has changed, only the voice remains the same; and I find myself convinced that if Mrs. June and I hadn't parted ways for so long, everything would have been simpler, because I would have been smitten by her voice, her music, and her merely by listening to «Call Me a Fool», without an alternation of ups and downs.

I bought this album because someone I trust blindly told me that «Call Me a Fool» is a magnificent track, give it a listen; I did, was struck by it, the album had to be mine at all costs, I was even willing to face the risk that the rest of the program might be less than zero.

Today that album is mine and for a month now it has dominated my listening without challenge.

Second clue: the sound.

I don’t like strings, violas, cellos, and such in a pop music album, I barely tolerate the violin, and in fact, one of the tracks I’ve come to hate the most is «Nothing Else Matters» by Metallica, because of the strings. However, one of the tracks I’ve come to love the most is «The Light Will Stay On» by the Walkabouts, again because of the strings.

Because music needs to be composed well, the ingredients – especially if diverse – require an expert hand to dose and blend them: the Walkabouts have that talent innately, Metallica doesn’t, they might be great metalheads but that track I don’t know if it’s more pathetic or ridiculous, on the level of performances by the late Pavarotti and his rock friends.

Now, Valerie’s album is filled to the brim with strings, and like the Walkabouts, she has the innate talent to insert a quantity of strings into a generically pop context that not even Mozart would have imagined.

There is always that track, «Call Me a Fool», at first it seems made of little – the classic instrumentation of guitar, bass, drums, and organ – then in the second verse, the strings enter and then the horns join the strings, and it becomes a masterpiece; maybe it would have been even without the strings, but I have no doubt that their presence highlights the beauty of the whole.

And Valerie’s voice, which in this instance is something incredible.

Third clue: the emotions.

That are mine, but also of others.

For instance, of the one who understands and suggested I listen to Valerie’s new album, and describes that track, always the same, as «... fabulous soul that seems to come straight from the late '60s and the Stax or Atlantic studios. Not being able to call Aretha Franklin to duet with her, Valerie invited Carla Thomas.» (here, the only note I make myself is that it reminds me so much of Etta James grappling with «I’d rather Go Blind» and I would have said her instead of Aretha).

Or, of the one who considers that «Back in the day, with a single like this, I would have made a 90 min. tape with the a-side of this song on repeat. The last time was with Lover you should’ve come over.».

The last time for me was «What Price for Freedom» by Naked Prey but they are always emotions, just a tad rougher.

Maybe it's age that softens the character, but a tape with 90 minutes of «Call Me a Fool» today I would record it and be thrilled all over.

And so there is a voice that gives chills, a splendid sound, emotions flowing: the proof that Valerie has made a great album, I am convinced. And I go so far as to write that it’s one of those increasingly rare albums, destined to last through the years.

Just one thing to close, and that is that in this little page, I’ve only written about «Call Me a Fool», but there are all the other tracks that, if they don’t reach that apex, come awfully close:

the blues and country languor of «Two Roads» is splendid, «Call Me a Fool» is entirely worth it; «You and I» which seems like a gospel but then the drums enter, it accelerates and becomes something else, only to return to gospel and then change again; the modern folk classicism of «Colors» and «Fallin’»; that wonder called «Smile» that takes the girl groups of the ‘60s and catapults them into 2021; the pulsing «Stardust Scattering»; in a whirlwind of sensations that range from Whitney Houston – I hear her, maybe I’m crazy – to David Sylvian, all with great taste and innate talent, indeed.

How wonderful it would be if one of these tracks – I suggest «Smile», complete with a video perfectly suited for the purpose – climbed and dominated the charts from now until the end of the year, it would really be a great thing.