SHEMEKIA COPELAND
Bio
At a young age, Shemekia Copeland is already a force to be reckoned with in the blues. While still in her 20s, she’s opened for the Rolling Stones, headlined at the Chicago Blues Festival and numerous festivals around the world, scored critics choice awards on both sides of the Atlantic (The New York Times and The Times of London) and shared the stage with such luminaries as Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Taj Mahal and John Mayer. Heir to the rich tradition of soul-drenched divas like Ruth Brown, Etta James and Koko Taylor, Copeland’s shot at the eventual title of Queen of the Blues is pretty clear. By some standards, she may already be there.
Copeland’s passion for singing, matched with her huge, blast-furnace voice, gives her music a timeless power and a heart-pounding urgency. Her music comes from deep within her soul and from the streets where she grew up, surrounded by the everyday sounds of the city – street performers, gospel singers, blasting radios, bands in local parks and so much more.
Born in Harlem, New York, in 1979, Copeland actually came to her singing career slowly. Her father, the late Texas blues guitar legend Johnny Clyde Copeland, recognized his daughter’s talent early on. He always encouraged her to sing at home, and even brought her on stage to sing at Harlem’s famed Cotton Club when she was just eight. At the time, Shemekia’s embarrassment outweighed her desire to sing. But when she was fifteen and her father’s health began to fail, her outlook changed. “It was like a switch went off in my head, and I wanted to sing,” she says. “It became a want and a need. I had to do it.”
At only 19, Shemekia stepped out of her father’s shadow with the Alligator release of 1998 debut recording, Turn the Heat Up!, and the critics raved. The Village Voice called her “nothing short of uncanny,” while the Boston Globe proclaimed that “she roars with a sizzling hot intensity.” A year later, she appeared in the Motion Picture Three To Tango, while her song “I Always Get My Man, was featured in the film Broken Hearts Club.
Her second album, Wicked, released in 2000, scored three Handy Awards (Song of the Year, Blues Album of the Year, Contemporary Female Artist of the Year) and a GRAMMY nomination. Two years later, New Orleans R&B legend Dr. John stepped in to produce her third recording, Talking To Strangers (2002), which Vibe called “a masterful blend of ballsy rockers and cheeky ballads.”
Copeland released The Soul Truth in 2005. The album was produced by legendary Stax guitarist Steve Cropper (who also played on the CD), and featured generous doses of blues, funk and Memphis-flavored soul.
She joined Telarc International for the February 2009 release of Never Going Back. This new chapter in the Shemekia Copeland story represents a crossroads on her ongoing artistic journey – a place where numerous new avenues are open to her. While she will always remain loyal to her blues roots, Never Going Back takes a more forward view of the blues, and in so doing points her music and her career in a new direction.
“I’ve had success in my career, and I’m happy with that,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to continue to grow. In order for an artist to grow – and for a genre to grow – you have to do new things. I’m extremely proud to say I’m a blues singer, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only thing I’m capable of singing, or that’s the only style of music I’m capable of making.”
She adds: “I want to keep growing. My main goal when I started this was that I was going to do something different with this music, so that this music could evolve and grow. I got that idea from my father. He didn’t do the typical one-four-five blues. He went to Africa and worked with musicians there. He was one of the first blues artists to do that. I want to be the same way. I want to be innovative with the blues.”
Never Going Back due at retail on February 24, 2009
Guest players include John Medeski, Marc Ribot and Chris Wood
For more than a decade, Shemekia Copeland has been paving a road that will inevitably lead to her reign as Queen of the Blues. By some standards – numerous blues awards in the U.S. and elsewhere, a Grammy nomination, a resume that includes work with musical titans like Dr. John and Steve Cropper and film giants like Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders – she may already be there.
For as appealing as that regal title may sound, though, and for as much as she respects the rich legacy of artists like Bessie Smith, Etta James or Koko Taylor, Copeland insists that there’s more to who she is and what she does than a twelve-bar ballad or a Chicago shuffle could ever convey.
Never Going Back, her debut on Telarc set for release on February 24, 2009, captures Copeland at a crossroads on that artistic path – a place where numerous new avenues are open to her. While Copeland will always remain loyal to her blues roots, Never Going Back takes a more forward view of the blues, and in so doing points her music and her career in a new direction.
“I’ve had success in my career, and I’m happy with that,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to continue to grow. In order for an artist to grow – and for a genre to grow – you have to do new things. I’m extremely proud to say I’m a blues singer, but doesn’t mean that’s the only thing I’m capable of singing, or that’s the only style of music I’m capable of making.”
That pursuit of a new and different sound led to producer Oliver Wood, a member of the acoustic and highly organic collective known as the Wood Brothers – a combo whose ranks also include bassist Chris Wood, co-founder and ongoing member of Medeski, Martin & Wood. “Oliver’s ideas were creative and innovative and different, and he was able to bring a different Shemekia out of me. I’m just so excited about that. I know what I’m capable of, but sometimes you just need the right person to bring that out of you, and I think he did a fantastic job of that.”
In addition to handling production duties, Oliver Wood also lays down guitar tracks on every one of the album’s dozen tracks and even contributes backing vocals in a couple places. The sizable crew of guest musicians also includes Chris Wood, keyboardist John Medeski and guitarist Marc Ribot.
The swampy opening track, “Sounds Like the Devil,” co-written by Copeland and executive producer John Hahn, addresses the dual hot buttons of religion and politics, two topics that Copeland has generally tried to stay away from in the past. However, the times being what they are, that kind of avoidance is no longer possible, she says.
“The truth is being twisted to a point where our faith – in the political system and just about everything else we believe in – has been completely busted,” she says. “We don’t trust anybody, we don’t know what to do, and a lot of the time, we’re politically handicapped because we’re kept in the dark. I can be brutal when I talk about this stuff, but I love the way John helps me get the frustration out of my system in the form of a good song.”
This same socially conscious sentiment remerges a couple tracks later in “Broken World,” a poignant piece wherein the singer expresses a wish to repair just one small corner of a world that is profoundly out of order. The track is infused with a catchy soul/gospel groove, thanks in large part to John Medeski’s expertise on Hammond B3.
Further into the set, Copeland veers away from traditional blues with a smoky, introspective rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Black Crow.” Newly arranged by Oliver Wood, the song was admittedly a leap for Copeland, but one that she was ready to take. “I wasn’t used to doing anything like that,” she admits. “I’d been listening to Joni Mitchell all my life, and I think she’s a great songwriter. I was content just to keep listening, but to attempt to record one of her songs was intimidating. But Oliver came up with a very cool arrangement, and as a result, I wasn’t afraid to jump in and do it. That’s the kind of thing that makes Oliver such an incredible producer.”
Other highlights include the defiant “Born a Penny,” a song that Copeland considers to be the most autobiographical track on the record, and “River’s Invitation,” a grinding Percy Mayfield song that speaks to the spiritual pull of the currents – real and metaphorical – that steer us through the world.
For all of her accomplishments to date, and for all of the potential she has yet to realize, Copeland maintains a sense of humility about it all – a virtue that only makes her story all the more appealing.
“Once upon a time, my main goal was to change the shape and the direction of the blues, all by myself,” she says. “But eventually, I realized that I wasn’t driving the bus, that I wasn’t really in charge. I’ve come to realize that I’m not in control of what people buy, or the nature of the market, or any of the things that happen after the music is recorded. Now I just look at it a different way. I’m just going to do my part, and my part is to do what I can do, in the best way I know how.”
If past is prologue, and if Never Going Back is any indication, all Shemekia Copeland can do will be more than enough.
Shemekia Copeland’s Never Going Back (CD-83692) is due at retail on February 24, 2009.
