00:00It's definitely happening.
00:08It's so weird.
00:10They said, did you not see that the...
00:14No.
00:16I saw the one that died.
00:18That was like starved.
00:20We just watched documentary about it.
00:22I hate that.
00:24Of course we'd be born at the end.
00:28Yeah.
00:30I'm telling.
00:32I'm telling.
00:34Yeah.
00:36We are rolling.
00:38So Valerie, can you describe your music to us?
00:44Yes, I can.
00:46I call it Moonshine Roots music because I want to have a playful name for my music.
00:50So that when people come to my music on their own, just fall into it somehow.
00:54Hear it from a friend or like from a magazine or something.
00:58And they can come into it with a big old question mark on the forehead and the mind.
01:03And I do that because I do an amalgamation of folk music, country, blues, gospel.
01:10All of the traditions of the South.
01:12And I'm from Tennessee and I just do what I heard growing up.
01:16Really.
01:17I take all of the foundations of Southern American music which are roots.
01:22I call them roots.
01:23And I just use them as the root of every song that I write and build on it and go from there.
01:28Nice.
01:29So the song that you just sang for us which is called Women, Working Women Blues.
01:34And it's talked about, I ain't fit to be no wife, I ain't fit to be no, I forgot the other
01:39line.
01:40But tell me more about that song.
01:41What speaks directly about that song, like what you were saying in that song.
01:47Well, I think a lot of women, and I did read this in Essence Magazine which I get every
01:55month.
01:56It was so cool because I was opening it up and I read this article and it was like, if that's
02:00not the working woman blues, I don't know what it is.
02:03But it just talked about how many of the six figure making women, they work really, really
02:08hard and then they come home and they have to do all the homework and they have awesome
02:13husbands.
02:14But it was just saying, it's okay to delegate tasks.
02:16Hire somebody to do some of the other tasks if you need to.
02:19It's all right.
02:21Just, you know, you don't have to stress yourself out.
02:24It's nice to have a nice balance.
02:26So I think, you know, the song is just taking a perspective of a woman who was just like,
02:32yeah, well maybe, you know, if working, overworking myself, stressing myself out and, you know,
02:39hustling is what it means to be a mom, then call me unfit because I got a better picture
02:46than that.
02:47My picture is more like a balance, a union between me and my man, us working together to create
02:53harmony and raise the kids together and me having time to do something sweet for myself,
02:58like take a walk at the end of the day, you know.
03:01And if coming home and cooking your meal and serving you at the table the traditional way
03:06is what it means to be a wife, well call me unfit for that too because I'm not fit for
03:10either one of those, you know.
03:12So it's kind of like, you know, sarcastic speaking.
03:16The voice that I heard that was singing it, I could have left it in the pile of all the
03:20other songs that I've written that I don't sing but I really felt connected to that song
03:25because I am a woman and I have worked very hard.
03:28I've done it all and, you know, seven days a week, ten, twelve hour days and that's been
03:35for years of my life.
03:36So, I think it's really important to give honor to our mothers and our grandmothers and
03:42the song does that.
03:44Now, so your album is called Pushing Against the Stone and tell us more about that because
03:49I won't be on camera if you just name the album and what you're saying in the album.
03:54Okay, okay.
03:57Pushing Against the Stone is the name of my record and I named it Pushing Against the Stone after
04:03a song that I wrote while I was in the studio.
04:07Easy Eye Studios is where I wrote that one and like every song that I write, it's inspired.
04:13I hear a voice and I just sing what I'm hearing but it was just such a great story because
04:20it talks about, you know, how it was bleeding blazing hot, hot as the sun and fortune teller
04:26told a tale of things to be done and it's just this person that I imagined when I was writing
04:32the song I got the image of this person pushing a stone up a hill and the stone kind of trying
04:37to roll back on them and then them being like, okay, okay, I can do it, I can push the stone
04:43up the hill and then other people coming in from many different, you know, parts of the
04:48world to help them push the stone on up the hill, up the mountain basically.
04:53So, it could be seen that way but it could also be seen as just pushing the stone across flatlands.
05:02And as I have performed the songs in Europe and, you know, throughout the states and different
05:07places from this record, what it means to push against the stone has changed for me.
05:12Like, I thought that the message from the song was just one thing that I described to you just a second ago,
05:20but the message from the song is actually, for me, that every day of our lives we face challenges.
05:27And we face some, I call them stones and some of them are large and some of them are small.
05:33But they're with us every day and it's basically how are you going to deal with the stone that day?
05:38Are you going to, like, push all your energy towards it?
05:41Some days it's okay to have a stone in your life and just let it sit there or get on top of it
05:46and look at the rest of the world and wave. You know, it's always, you know, how you want to view things
05:51and how you want to look at things and what kind of reality you wish to create.
05:55And so, I've kind of started to make the stones in my life my friend, my best friends,
06:01and tried to use them as ways for me to see what I really want my life to look like
06:07and make changes in every day of my life in order to live the dreams that I wish to have.
06:13And that's been working for me for years, so pushing against the stone.
06:19At that time the pushing was actually pushing. It wasn't just, you know, chilling on top of the stone
06:26on a sunny day in the summer, you know. Some days I'm pushing it again, you know.
06:31Other days I'm taking a nap on it or dancing on top of it in the rain like I'm by the muddy Mississippi River.
06:37You never know how you're going to need to deal with the stone or how large it is or how small it is
06:43or if you're going to have to go over and help your friend out with theirs, you know.
06:47So, that's what pushing against the stone means to me, but it'll mean something different to everybody.
06:52So, you know, there's going to be the obvious, because now this is the, I feel like the album that's going to be,
06:58this is not your first album though.
07:00No, it's the first label release record.
07:03Label, yes. You know, now it's a bigger audience, so people, you know, it's going to be word essence.
07:08They're going to be like, well, you're a black woman, like that's not the kind of music we expect from you.
07:11So, tell me about the idea, the expectations that people have of you because you're a black woman from the south
07:17and what kind of music you should be making.
07:19Well, because I'm a black woman from the south, people do have expectations, but I believe that black people are vast
07:31and that there's as many black people out there as somebody can imagine that there is, you know.
07:37Good people, bad people, all kinds of people, and as I've traveled and I've been representing my part of the south
07:44and, you know, I don't try to ignore the fact that we have issues and problems, but I see things changing
07:51and I see, I'm a visionary.
07:54And what came into my mind on this last tour was Dr. Martin Luther King when he said,
08:01and I get so nervous when I talk about this because I'm not political, but he just said, you know, I have a dream
08:06that one day, you know, we won't be judged by the color of our skin but the content of our character.
08:11And I ask my people to look at me like that, it would mean a lot to me.
08:16And I ask the rest of the world to look at me like that.
08:20And I ask the question every day, what can I do to enrich the content of my character?
08:26Because when we really just get down to that and we get down to who we are as people
08:31and we really just focus on that, it doesn't matter whether I'm playing a country song or a blues song
08:36or, you know, an upbeat like dancey kind of song like Want to Be On Your Mind.
08:40They're all great songs and that's what matters.
08:43And am I, you know, enriching my character and doing something that I feel passionate about,
08:49the spreading love in the world that is enriching the whole entire planet on a level?
08:55You know, I always have to ask myself those questions.
08:58And if I feel like I can close my eyes at the end of the day and feel like I've got like just a second of my day
09:04towards that direction, then I feel good about it.
09:07And so that's kind of how I've had to start looking at it
09:10because I've never been accepted by either color and I'm all black, you know.
09:15So I understood biracial people feeling like that, but I don't really understand me feeling like that
09:21because I'm not biracial. So, yeah, that's always been one of the issues for me in my life.
09:27So it's interesting to talk about that one.
09:29I mean, this is inspirational though because you're living what you, you're setting your own tone
09:34and that's, very few people can do that. I don't even know it.
09:38We have to.
09:39Well, you have a choice, right?
09:41Yeah.
09:42I'm not going to be great today.
09:43Yeah! Yay! Yay! Just go out and be great.
09:46All right.
09:47Fearlessly.
09:48Who are some of the influences, who are some of the people that got you here musically?
09:53There's so many, so many people. I'll start with my family and my Kickstarter fans
10:00and the people who have supported my, you know, records that I made by myself
10:05and put out and sold out of the back of my car at different festivals and shows.
10:09There's so many people that I'm grateful for who've helped me over the years
10:15to just be who I am today.
10:17The Kickstarter fans who donated funds to make this record.
10:21Because I made this record before a label even got involved.
10:24And so those were people who came to the shows when I was like playing guitar like this.
10:29You know, like, and they were like, you'll get there. We support you, you know.
10:37So, and they supported me all the way through.
10:41And now it's like success is happening on a level where we all can see and appreciate.
10:46And they are so excited and so grateful.
10:49And they have every record that I've done in the time, in the place where I was in teaching myself how to play at that time.
10:55And they appreciate it all and they're so excited.
10:58And then from there I met people like Craig Street who's amazing and is a mentor for me.
11:03Michelle Ndegaccello, John Forte, Booker T, Dan Auerbach.
11:07I mean, the Hungarian musicians that I worked with who opened up the Working Woman Blues
11:11and turned it into a world music feeling like Ali Fakaturi song, you know.
11:16Like, it never would have gone there if I hadn't gone to Budapest and worked with them.
11:21And Kevin Agunas, there's so many people.
11:24And my labels and my manager.
11:27I mean, it's huge the amount of people who influence my music.
11:31And every time I played on the street and someone's come up and given me a compliment or a dollar for a new track that I was like,
11:39let me just get out on the street and see what the world thinks about this song.
11:43If there was any kind of encouragement, there was enough fuel to keep me going along the way.
11:50So I really am, I have endless numbers of people to thank for everything.
11:56Thank you. That's all.
11:59All right. Hope it's not too long. You'll cut it up.
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