Genre-hopping singer/songwriter Valerie June released her latest album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles in April, and she's explained how the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach challenged her to step away from her comfort zone when it came to the guitars with which she illuminates the record.
Blending folk, gospel, and blues in her signature, Grammy-nominated style, the record shines through June’s two-sided guitar playing – defined by grungy electrics and gentle acoustic guitars.
On her 2014 album, Pushin' against a Stone, a sentimental Gibson acoustic proved the star of the show. Then, disaster struck.
“I had just made Pushin’ Against a Stone and was flying back to Tennessee from Canada when my guitar was busted up on the flight – totally destroyed,” she tells Acoustic Guitar.
“It was a Gibson, like Robert Johnson played, an L-1. It was tiny, fit perfectly to my little body, and it broke my heart. I named that guitar Clyde after my grandfather because he gave me my first guitar, a little red Mexican guitar with paintings on the front that was in his closet my whole life until I finally begged so long for one my Granny made him give it to me.”
Owls, Omens, and Oracles was tracked live and committed to tape under the leadership of producer M. Ward. But before that, she confided in a contemporary blues rock luminary for help in replacing her beloved Clyde.
“When I got to Nashville and told Dan Auerbach [of the Black Keys] my Gibson was busted, he said, ‘Get a Martin – try something new. Go downtown to [vintage guitar store] Gruhn and play them and see what happens,’” June says.
Strangely, she goes on to reveal that “the salesman wouldn’t sell me the first guitar I liked,” but he was, at least, forthcoming with alternative options.
“He brought five or six more in that style and said, ‘You’re gonna sit here and play each one, and the one that you feel is the one you’re gonna get.’
“I fell in love with one [a 000-15] and I went to buy it,” she continues. “He said, ‘Could you read out the serial number to me?’ He was filling out this little form and I read the serial number. The last four digits were my phone number, and I was just like, ‘This is definitely mine!’”
Elements of what she looks for in a guitar were revealed when asked if she ever uses picks.
“No,” she responds. “I like to feel the strings on my skin, the vibration of the instrument against my body, the smell of the wood.”
For live, she's installed L.R. Baggs pickups for the 000-15, and she has Auerbach to thank for connecting her with Clyde’s faithful replacement.
So far in 2025, Martin has joined forces with Billy Strings on two signature models inspired by his 1940 D-28, dropped a double-neck that's been 100 years in the making, and added Dreadnoughts to its Junior Series.
