TUNAGE – MMB
Here we are, another week of our musical journey in the month of June.
Today in music history, the blues legend Howlin’ Wolf was born on June 10, 1910. A towering figure in electric blues, his voice was gravel and thunder, his presence unmatched. His influence still echoes through generations of rock and blues musicians.
Also on this day in 1966, Janis Joplin gave her first concert at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. That night lit the fuse on a career that would burn fast, fierce, and unforgettable, cementing her place in the rock and soul pantheon.
Let’s dive into this week’s find and see how today’s sounds connect with yesterday’s legends. Much like Janis and Howlin’ Wolf, Valerie June doesn’t just perform — she inhabits the music.
Today, we’re diving into Valerie June’s cover of the Mazzy Star classic, “Fade Into You.”
Now, let’s get this straight: covering Mazzy Star is no small task. The original is moody, slow-burning, and wrapped in a haze of ‘90s dream-pop melancholy. Hope Sandoval’s vocals practically sigh through the track like she’s floating down a foggy hallway in velvet boots. It’s hypnotic. Intimate. Like someone whispering in your ear from the other side of a memory.
Valerie June? She didn’t just walk into that vibe — she brought her own stardust. The similarities are there: both versions are slow, spacious, and draped in a gentle sadness that doesn’t wallow but wanders. June respects the skeletal structure of the original. She doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, and thank the musical gods for that. Some songs are temples; you don’t bulldoze them, you light a candle inside.
But here’s where Valerie June makes it unmistakably hers: that voice. Her voice is a peculiar kind of magic — cosmic, earthy, otherworldly. It stretches vowels like taffy and flickers like candlelight. She leans into the vulnerability but sprinkles in this ethereal, Appalachian soul that Mazzy Star never aimed for. It’s less haze and more starlight.
She trades the desert dusk of the original for something a little more astral-folk. June holds true to lines like:
“I want to hold the hand inside you / I want to take a breath that’s true”
— not just in delivery, but in spirit. She breathes them out like a slow exhale across constellations. You still get lost in it, but this time it’s like drifting through a Southern night sky instead of a grungy twilight bedroom.
This cover doesn’t try to outdo the original. It honors it. And then it subtly shifts the lens, showing us the same heartbreak and yearning from a different angle. It’s like hearing an old friend tell you a familiar story in a way you’ve never quite heard before.
Valerie June didn’t just cover “Fade Into You” — she communed with it. And lucky for us, she brought back something beautiful.
Hit play, close your eyes, and let yourself fade. See you next week with another pick that deserves your ears.
Memoirs of Madness 