Smokestack Lightning

Well, if you were lucky enough to catch Valerie June on tour in the summer of 2026 or caught her Calgary Folk Fest set on CKUA, which was carried live on the airwaves, you would have heard songs like those we discussed from her beautiful latest album alongside tunes from throughout her catalogue and some really exciting interpretations of old blues material.

And no more than a few days after that Calgary appearance, Valerie released Smokestack.

a single which combines a kind of blues rockin' take on Hallow Wolf's 1950s gem Smokestack Lightnin' with some of the imagery from folk classic In the Pines, recorded by everyone from Hootie Ledbetter to Nirvana.

This is the first taste of yet another surprising project, an EP connecting the past and present of Roots music traditions called Brighter Blue, which Valerie puts out one week from the launch of this podcast on the 11th of September.

That's just Valerie June for you, isn't it? Always evolving, always creating, always drawing strength from traditions to inspire something entirely contemporary and personal you can try to stay on top of everything that she's up to at valeriejune.com and her social channels and you can also hear valerie in a guest turn way back in season two of hidden track as well as she was part of our episode in tribute to the great charlie pride and the black roots of country music Plus, you can catch her old friend's Old Crow Medicine show as part of Hidden Tracks Season 4 as well.

March 28th, the Nassau Coliseum.

They break out smokestack lightning, then high time, and Jerry's not just dusting it off, he's shredding it.

The tempo's noticeably faster than the old versions.

Actually, everything's faster.

But instead of the vibe dying, they debut Keep on Growing, the Derek and the Dominoes cover, and bring back Stagger Lee.

Second set opens with morning dew and people are losing their minds.

Then after smokestack lightning, they segue into comes a time.

First one in almost five years.

is real singer songwriter kind of stuff telling stories and you know real life experiences

yeah man and and not and not just and i said you know it's it's kind of like Howlin' Wolf does Smokestack Lightning.

He's just describing, you know, and you get what he's saying.

You get the picture, you get, yeah, yeah.