Shemekia: ’I am blues’

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Shemekia: ’I am blues’
February 2011
by Michael Lello
Weekender

If it was up to her, Shemekia Copeland would have never even gotten on a stage. Lucky for her — and thousands of blues fans — she had no choice.

Copeland, who was born in Harlem and lived in the Poconos before moving to Chicago, tells the story of how her father Johnny Copeland, a blues guitarist, forced the matter.

“I got shocked onto stage,” says Copeland, who will open for Robert Cray at the F.M. Kirby Center Friday, Feb. 25. Copeland was squabbling with her brother one night, and their mom brought them to The Cotton Club, a Harlem venue where their father was performing.

“My dad saw me sitting in the audience, and he started playing a song we used to sing around the house,” she recalls. “And he called me up on stage. I thought I was being punished. Now it’s my favorite part of the business, being on stage in front of people.”

Her most recent album of new material is called “Never Going Back,” released in 2009. It was produced by Oliver Wood, a member of The Wood Brothers. Guest players on the record include Wood and his brother Chris Wood (Wood Brothers, Medeski Martin & Wood), John Medeski (Medeski Martin & Wood), guitarist Marc Ribot and Derek Trucks Band members Kofi Burbridge and Mike Mattison. And In January, Alligator Records released “Deluxe Edition,” a compilation of songs dating back to Copeland’s 1998 debut “Turn The Heat Up.”

Copeland has opened for The Rolling Stones, headlined major blues festivals and been heralded as the heir apparent to Ruth Brown, Etta James and Koko Taylor, but for the big-voiced singer, the goals have been broad and simple.

“In my whole career, my main goal has always been to help blues music develop and grow,” she shares. “A lot of people get into the blues music, then the second they do well, they leave it and switch to whatever they wanted to be in the first place.”

Coming of age around the blues, thanks to her dad, had “a huge impact” on that outlook, says Copeland.

“I grew up in the middle of Harlem during the hip-hop era,” she says. “So if my dad was not a blues musician, I probably would have never heard blues, and I’m so grateful for that, because blues is me, and I am blues. It’s in my soul. It’s who I am.”