SHEMEKIA COPELAND, DONE COME TOO FAR

written by Marc Lipkin

“ShemekiaCopeland is the greatest blues singer of her generation.” –The Washington Post

“Shemekia Copeland has established herself as one of the leading blues artistsof our time.” –NPRMusic

“Shemekia Copeland provides a soundtrack for contemporary America...powerful,ferocious, clear-eyed and hopeful...She’s in such control of her voice that shecan scream at injustices before she soothes with loving hope. It sends shiversup your spine.” –LivingBlues

“Shemekia Copeland is an antidote to artifice. She is a commanding presence, apowerhouse vocalist delivering the truth.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer

“I am so happy Shemekia is delivering these songs that the world needs to hear.Her voice is strong and soulful, and her message comes from her heart.” –Mavis Staples

Award-winning blues, soul and Americana singer Shemekia Copelandpossesses one of the most instantly recognizable and deeply soulful roots musicvoices of our time. She is beloved worldwide for the fearlessness, honesty andhumor of her revelatory music, as well as for delivering each song she performswith unmatched passion. Copeland — winner of the 2021 Blues Music Award forB.B. King Entertainer Of The Year— connects with her audience on an intenselypersonal level, taking them with her on what The Wall Street Journal calls “a consequential ride” of “bold andtimely blues.” NPR Music saysShemekia sings with “punchy defiance and potent conviction.” The Houston Chronicle describes hersongs as “resilient pleas for a kinder tomorrow.”

On her new Alligator album, Done Come Too Far, Copelandcontinues the story she began telling on 2018’s groundbreaking America’sChild and 2020’s Grammy-nominated Uncivil War, reflecting her visionof America’s past, present and future. On Done Come Too Far, she delivers her hard-hittingmusical truths through her eyes, those of a young American Black woman, amother, and a wife. But she likes to have a good time too, and her musicreflects that, at times putting her sly sense of humor front and center. “Thisalbum was made by all sides of me — happy, sad, silly, irate — they’re all apart who I am and who we all are. I’m not political. I’m just talking aboutwhat’s happening in this country.”

And she doesn’t hold back. Recorded in Nashville and produced bymulti-instrumentalist/songwriter Will Kimbrough (who also produced her previoustwo albums), Done Come Too Far is Copeland at her charismatic, passionate,confrontational best. With singular purpose and simmering power, Copelandunleashes the searing, history-fueled tracks Too Far To Be Gone (featuring Sonny Landreth on scorching slideguitar) and Done Come Too Far (withGrammy-winner Cedric Burnside duetting and playing Mississippi Hill Countryblues guitar). “If you think we’re stopping,” she sings in both songs, “you gotit wrong.” On The Talk, Copelandshares the brutally honest, harrowing reality of a Black mother talking withher son about surviving an encounter with the police (with the great CharlesHodges of the famed Hi Rhythm Section on pulsating B-3 organ). On theall-t00-timely Pink Turns To Red(written and recorded prior to the May 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting),Copeland decries America’s gun violence epidemic.

DoneCome Too Far’s better times and brighter days come on just as strong inthe fun and swampy Fried Catfish AndBibles and the boot-kickin’, semi-autobiographical Fell In Love With A Honky. Spirits get lifted in Copeland’scelebratory interpretation of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s Barefoot In Heaven, before closing the set with the heartfelt lovesong, Nobody But You, written by herrenowned father, the late Texas bluesman Johnny Clyde Copeland.

Copeland is used to the spotlight. Born and raised in Harlem, New York in 1979,she first stepped on stage with her famous father at New York’s Cotton Clubwhen she was eight. As soon as Copeland released her Alligator Records debut TurnThe Heat Up in 1998 at age 18, she instantly became a blues and R&Bforce to be reckoned with. The New YorkTimes and CNN, among many others,praised her talent, larger-than-life personality, dynamic, authoritative voiceand true star power. With each subsequent release, Copeland’s music continuedto evolve. From her debut through 2005’s The Soul Truth, Shemekia earnedeight Blues Music Awards and a host of LivingBlues Awards. 2000’s Wicked received the first of herfour Grammy nominations. After two successful releases on Telarc (including2012’s Grammy-nominated 33 1/3), Copeland returned toAlligator Records in 2015 with the Grammy-nominated, Blues Music Award-winning OutskirtsOf Love, melding blues with more rootsy, Americana sounds.

With 2018’s America’s Child, Copeland, now the mother of a baby boy, sangabout the blessings and curses of the world around her. MOJO magazine named America’s Child the #1 blues releaseof 2018. It won both the Blues Music Award and the Living Blues Award for Album Of The Year. AllMusic said, “Witty andsincere…Shemekia Copeland is one of the best singers in contemporary blues, notjust for her voice but for her courage to use it to say something aboutAmerican culture…showing good times and a social conscience can co-exist.”

In addition to earning a Grammy Award nomination (her fourth), Copeland’sgroundbreaking 2020 release Uncivil War was named the 2020 BluesAlbum Of The Year by DownBeat, MOJOand Living Blues magazines. Thealbum, like its predecessor, looked at the hardships and happiness peopleencounter, seeking common ground, demanding change and still finding ways tohave a good time. “Shemekia Copeland is a powerhouse,” said Rolling Stone. “She can do no wrong.”

Copeland has performed thousands of gigs at clubs, festivals and concert hallsall over the world, and has appeared in films, on national television, NPR, andhas been the subject of major feature stories in hundreds of magazines,newspapers and internet publications. She’s sung with Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards,Carlos Santana, Dr. John, James Cotton and many others, and has shared a billwith The Rolling Stones. She entertained U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait in2008, a trip she says, “that opened my eyes to the larger world around me andmy place in it.” In 2012, she performed with B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Buddy Guy,Trombone Shorty, Gary Clark, Jr. and others at the White House for Presidentand Mrs. Obama. She has showcased on PBS’s AustinCity Limits and was the subject of a six-minute feature on the PBS News Hour.

Copeland was the subject of a recent WashingtonPost Sunday magazine story and appeared on both NPR’s Weekend Edition and Here AndNow. And NPR’s Jazz Night In Americarecently aired an hour-long program featuring Copeland. In April 2022, she performedat the United Nations General Assembly Hall to a worldwide audience of millionsas part of International Jazz Day celebrations. Copeland continues to host herown popular daily blues radio show on SiriusXM’s Bluesville.

But it’s not just press and radio singing Copeland’s praises. She is beloved byher fellow musicians across genres and demographics. Jeff Beck called her“amazing.” Carlos Santana said, “She’s incandescent…a diamond.” Bonnie Raitttold BBC radio, “Shemekia always knocks me out.” The late John Prine said, “Shedoesn’t sound like anybody else.” Mary Gauthier declared, “Shemekia is one ofthe great singers of our time. Her voice is nothing short of magic.”

As for the continuing evolution of her music, Copeland is very clear. “Once myson was born,” she says, “I became even more committed to making the world abetter place. On America’s Child, Uncivil War and now DoneCome Too Far, I’ve been trying to put the ‘United’ back into UnitedStates. Friends, family and home, these things we all value.”

With DoneCome Too Far, Copeland hits harder than ever with musically andlyrically adventurous songs and jaw-dropping performances that are at oncetimely and timeless. The ChicagoTribune’s famed jazz critic Howard Reich said, “Shemekia Copeland is thegreatest female blues vocalist working today. She pushes the genre forward,confronting racism, hate, xenophobia and other perils of our time. Regardlessof subject matter, though, there’s no mistaking the majesty of Copeland’sinstrument, nor the ferocity of her delivery. Copeland reaffirms the relevanceof the blues.”