SHEMEKIA COPELAND "Never Going Back"
Telarc Blues
SHEMEKIA COPELAND was only 19 when she
released her first album, "Turn the Heat
Up," in 1998, but her powerhouse voice
and sassy attitude had people calling
her the new Queen of the Blues from the
beginning. The label was both an honor
and a burden -- a burden because some
folks wanted to lock her in the classic
blues style of the '50s. She has been
wriggling out of that box ever since and
has searched for a new kind of blues for
her generation. Now 29, Copeland has
found that new style on the album "Never
Going Back."
Copeland discovered a crucial partner in
Oliver Wood, who not only produced the
project but also co-wrote five of the 12
songs. Wood is one half of the terrific
singer-songwriter duo the Wood Brothers.
The other half, Chris Wood, a member of
the jazz trio Medeski, Martin & Wood,
joins bandmate John Medeski on the
album, too. The twin influences of
singer-songwriter pop and jam-happy jazz
inoculate the session against the usual
blues cliches and allow Copeland's
imposing voice to dig into narrative
detail and musical surprises.
Two older blues songs ("River's
Invitation" by Percy Mayfield and
"Circumstances" by father Johnny
Copeland) recall a time when such detail
and surprises were more common in the
blues. That tradition is revived on Paul
Thorn's "Rise Up" and Buddy and Julie
Miller's "Dirty Water." Best of all is
Oliver Wood and John Hahn's "Never Going
Back to Memphis," a six-minute film-noir
thriller put to music. When a man wipes
his fingerprints off a gun and hands the
singer the rag, the tension in
Copeland's reined-in voice and Marc
Ribot's spooky guitar proves infectious.
-- Geoffrey Himes
