Valerie June continues to dissolve musical boundaries with the release of her new standalone single, a gritty cover of the blues standard “Rollin’ and Tumblin’.”
Arriving on the heels of her critically acclaimed 2025 album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles (Concord), this latest track sees the Grammy-nominated artist exploring the gritty intersection where the blues meets rock. Following her recent single “Runnin’ and Searchin’,” June’s new cover offers a fuzzy, electrified departure from her usual acoustic arrangements.
Inspired by the lineage between traditional blues and the heavy sounds of Black Sabbath, June sought to liberate her instrument of choice. “I wanted to take this old standard and perform it with my banjo running through a super fuzzy electric guitar amp,” June explains. Working alongside producer Matt Marinelli and drummer Andy Macleod, she aimed to “break the chains that confine [the banjo] to traditional forms.”
The result is a “fierce and wild reconstruction” that June explicitly dedicates to the memory of Ozzy Osbourne, a testament to her reputation as an expansive artist who, as NPR Music notes, seamlessly dabbles in everything from Appalachian folk to psychedelic rock.
June has previously performed this Delta Blues Classic on banjo for a KEXP session (2014), encouraging her audience to check out the version by Rosa Lee Hill, recorded by Alan Lomax in Como, Mississippi, September 25, 1959. A recording of Hill performing the song appears on “Worried Now, Won’t Be Worried Long,” one of five albums commemorating the 50th anniversary of Lomax’s “Southern Journey” field recording trip, which was released in 2010 digitally by Global Jukebox (GJ 1002) and on LP by Mississippi Records (MR 058).
Listen to Hill performing below. The notes for the track share how Hill was the daughter of the Mississippi Hill Country’s composer, multi-instrumentalist, band leader, and musical patriarch, Sid Hemphill. Sid taught Rosalie to play the guitar when she was six; by the time she was ten, she was playing dances with him. The only two songs she recorded for Alan were marked by a desolate, keening intensity, although by all accounts she was a jolly woman. Her father died in 1961, after which, as blues researcher George Mitchell noted, most of the very musical Hemphills “just didn’t feel like playing no more.” Rosie hung up her guitar for a time, but by the time Mitchell visited in 1967, she was playing again, and recorded for him a barely less spry version of “Rolled and Tumbled.” She died a year later.
June is currently bringing her unique blend of “catchy splendor” to the stage on her Big Ole Worldwide Tour. Following a run of international dates, she will head to Europe this month (including a sold-out London show at EartH), before returning to the U.S. for a show at New York’s Town Hall in December.
Valerie June Big Ole Worldwide Tour Dates
Sat. Nov. 15 – Barcelona, ES @ Feroe’ 25 Festival
Sun. Nov. 16 – Valencia, ES @ 16 Toneladas
Tue. Nov. 18 – Madrid, ES @ Teatro Magno
Wed. Nov. 19 – Bilbao, ES @ Bilborock
Thu. Nov. 20 – Santiago de Compostela, ES @ Outono Códax Festival 2025 (Sala Capitol)
Sun. Nov. 30 – Paris, France @ New Morning
Mon. Dec. 1 – London, UK @ EartH Theatre – SOLD OUT
Tue. Dec. 2 – Brussels, BE @ Orangerie Botanique
Wed. Dec. 3 – Amsterdam, NL @ Zonnehuis
Thu. Dec. 4 – Rotterdam, NL @ Bird
Fri. Dec. 12 – New York, NY @ Town Hall
Thu. Jan. 15 – Mon. Jan. 19 – Puerto Aventuras, Q.R. @ Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky – SOLD OUT
Wed. Feb. 11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Carnegie Lecture Hall