Available to stream & download 4/28!
When we were living in Harrisonburg I walked to and from work almost every day for several years. Exceptions being the times my coworkers or Taylor kindly shuttled me in the dark, rain, heat, or snow. And when I declined—or tried to decline—an offer of kindness, I wasn’t just being polite, because I loved every step of my Valley walks.
My morning travel up Route 33 was in the direction of the sunrise over the eastern ridgeline, and my evening walk home would be towards the sunset over the west. I gained an intimate relationship with the geography of the commute, and had lots of time to think, write, and be granted access to songs at the steady clip of my footsteps.
Blue Ridge Lullaby is the first walking-song I wrote, and it’s is simply a welling up of the joy and gratitude I would often feel heading home after a day’s work towards a million-color sunset over the familiar, steady shapes of the mountains hemming in the Valley, and hemming me in too. As if the mountains weren’t already generous enough in their consistent beauty and transference of peace, they gifted me this song.
Our hope in releasing Blue Ridge Lullaby is to continue passing the gift along to anyone else who might feel the same way about this or any meaningful place. To everyone who has heard this song at shows or through the grapevine and told us that it’s resonated with you, thank you—thank you Greg, Ebony, Amberlee, dear reader; you are why we finally recorded this song and you echo the gift that makes us feel particularly lucky to be connected into this web of community and beauty.
—Valerie
JUNIPER TREE UPDATES
Blue Ridge Lullaby is here!
Our second recorded song, Blue Ridge Lullaby is now available just about anywhere music can be streamed (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Youtube, etc), and for download via Bandcamp. Recorded, mixed, and mastered with lots of love by Taylor Bess in Richmond, Virginia.
We made a Spotify Playlist called ‘Peace for the Road’ to celebrate. 🙂
We were originally planning to release an EP around this time, and we do have an EP’s-worth of music about finished, but one thing lead to another and we put together a longer list of songs that we’re excited to release together in the form of our first album. I won’t be so bold as to estimate a date yet, but we are really excited to be working on it and making progress at a great pace, trying to put at least one evening on the calendar each week when Taylor doesn’t have a session going in the studio.
The album will include Dog on My Bed, Blue Ridge Lullaby, and 8 other songs written around the same time (2017-2020). We’ve already got a whole ‘nother list of new music shaping up for the next project!
Upcoming Shows
6/3 @ Courthouse Creek Cider We’ll be providing some afternoon ambience at a beautiful cidery and farm out near Goochland, VA the first Saturday in June. It’s always a lovely time out there 🙂
INSPIRATION LATELY
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
This book made me laugh and weep more times than I can count. I managed to only let one teardrop fall on the library book; I tried so hard to aim them elsewhere, I’m sorry, library! Ross Gay’s storytelling, openness, and extrapolation of the full spectrum of what joy contains broke me open and softened me to my own humanity in a way I am deeply grateful for. I have plans to buy my own copy to read and cry freely upon and share with friends and will be reading it again and again and again, and referring to its passages often. Couldn’t recommend this collection of essays more.
Libby Hill Park
You can take me from the mountains, but you can’t keep me from finding the highest geographical point in my surrounding area and going there every day. I have fallen in love with sitting up there, feeling the breeze rise from the James River, reading, writing, and watching the city hum.
BEFORE YOU GO,
A POEM FOR THE ROAD:
Untied
As the bird suspends Over the deep blue mountains, So I fly untied Can you feel the grief? I cut it with my wings I move the air The mountains move me
Leave a Reply