TOP LIVE SHOW
Shemekia Copeland
B.B. King's Blues Club & Grill
Wed. 30
"Never Going Back to
Memphis," the longest track on Shemekia
Copeland’s recent album, Never Going
Back, begins in a noirish hush, with
Marc Ribot’s ominous guitar stabbing
viciously through the muck. Usually
Copeland sings in an imposing bawl—she
belongs to the school of blues belters
whose roars could move rocks up
hills—but here she enters tentatively.
The song, written by the record’s
producers, Oliver Wood and John Hahn,
sparely details a crime and escape.
“Said he’d come around unless he was
dead,” Copeland shrugs. “Guess he took
another woman—or a bullet in the head.”
She sings the lines with resignation and
restraint, dispatching her bellow only
fleetingly, as the song begins its fade.
The album draws its title from this
song, but with a fresh meaning. Never
Going Back, the young singer’s fifth
LP, is her first to be released on
Telarc—previously Copeland recorded for
the blues label Alligator. Here, she
departs from a purist approach with
loose, arty flourishes from the band.
Still, blues remain this artist’s love
and birthright, and she concludes the
record with “Circumstances,” written by
her late father, famed guitarist Johnny
Copeland. It is a timely song, its
narrator crushed by job loss and
economic powerlessness. Copeland sings
it big and mean, armed with the
conviction of heritage.
—Jay Ruttenberg
