SHEMEKIA COPELAND
Genres: RnB, Blues, Jazz Related Rock • United States

Powerful, soul-inflected blues singer, the daughter of Texas blues guitarist Johnny Copeland. The daughter of renowned Texas blues guitarist Johnny Copeland, award-winning blues singer Shemekia Copeland began making a splash in her own right before she was even out of her teens. Projecting a maturity beyond her years, Copeland fashioned herself as a powerful, soul-inflected shouter in the tradition of Koko Taylor and Etta James, yet also proved capable of a subtler range of emotions. Her 1998 Alligator debut, Turn the Heat Up!, featured a career-elevating version of her father's classic "Ghetto Child," that has been part of her performance repertoire ever since. She released three more acclaimed rough-and-rowdy recordings that decade before revealing a more nuanced, slow-burning persona on Never Going Back in 2009. Over her next two albums, 2012's 33 1/3 and 2015's Outskirts Of Love, she became not only a formidable singer, but an influential stylist. read more...