On The Road With Award-Winning Singer, Shemekia Copeland

Award-winning and Grammy-nominated blues, soul and Americana singer Shemekia Copeland, is releasing a brand new album, Completed Come Too Far (obtainable on CD and LP) August 19^th., 2022. Recorded in Nashville and produced by multi-instrumentalist songwriter Will Kimbrough (who additionally produced her earlier two albums), the brand new Alligator Data launch exhibits Copeland’s fearlessness, honesty, and hopefulness, and he or she holds again nothing.

“If you happen to assume we’re stopping, you’ve received it mistaken,” she sings on the album’s first single, Too Far To Be Gone, which has simply been launched. The music, which additionally options visitor artist and slide guitar grasp, Sonny Landreth, is already one in all SiriusXM’s B.B. King’s Bluesville channel’s most-played tracks.

Copeland is the winner of the 2021 Blues Music Award for B.B. King Entertainer Of The Yr, the identical award her father, Johnny Clyde Copeland acquired posthumously in 1983. The Washington Submit calls Copeland “the best blues singer of her technology.” Residing Blues says “Shemekia Copeland is in such management of her voice that she will scream at injustices earlier than she soothes with loving hope. It sends shivers up your backbone.”

“Completed Come Too Far” says John Hahn, Shemekia Copeland’s very long time songwriter, “is the third album of a trilogy which started with Shemekia’s 2019 ground- breaking America’s Baby and 2020’s Grammy-nominated Uncivil Struggle. On the album, Copeland delivers hard-hitting musical truths: as a younger American Black girl, a mom, and a spouse. However she additionally has a humorousness mirrored in two songs on her new album, “Fried Catfish” and “Fell in Love With a Honky.”

Copeland, who lives in Oceanside close to San Diego together with her husband Brian Schultz, and eight-year-old son Johnny (named after Copeland’s father), received’t have a lot of an opportunity to see her household for a lot of months. She’s been touring with a schedule so hectic that between now and December 31^st, 2022, she’ll carry out in 30 totally different venues in Spain, Norway, Canada, plus in 20 states and the October 2022 Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. I caught up together with her by telephone on one in all her few days off between gigs at her dwelling in Oceanside, California.

You’ve mentioned your new album consists of all sides of you: glad, unhappy, foolish, irate. What about politics?

I am not political. I am simply speaking about what’s occurring on this nation.

Do you assume that music can change folks’s minds and prejudices?

Sure, I would wish to assume music is highly effective sufficient to do this. If we get to know one another, it makes it simpler for us to be extra understanding of one another and the way we really feel. We spend a lot time letting different folks inform us how folks ought to be or are. I’m not going to permit someone on TV inform me who an individual is. I need to discover out for myself.

So, you’re hopeful concerning the future?

in case you’re not hopeful, you are going to be a reasonably depressing particular person. You’ve received to have a constructive perspective and hope that issues can presumably solely get higher, that modifications may be made. Typically I get discouraged and indignant. My baby has his entire life forward of him, and I need to be sure that he stays hopeful so he can reside a very good life.

You had kidney most cancers final June they usually eliminated 20% of your kidney. Had been you on the highway on the time?

We have been nonetheless proper in the midst of COVID, however I used to be about to begin doing a little gigs. Then I discovered I had a tumor, and I needed to prolong all of that one other six weeks.

How do you’re feeling now?

I really feel nice. Thus far, it isn’t recurring, so I am simply going to hope and pray that that is the case with me.

You’ve definitely had your share of well being points not too long ago. Final 12 months, you have been about to board the ship in Fort Lauderdale on your efficiency on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, however you examined constructive for COVID. What did you do?

I stayed at a resort in Florida.

Did you ever get to board the ship and carry out?

No, I used to be gone. Being quarantined in Florida was definitely my first prolonged little journey.

Talking of journeys, you will have a loopy touring schedule arising by way of the top of the 12 months. Are you doing songs from the brand new album, or are you ready until it is launched August 19^th?

I am doing a mixture of issues and beginning to do a few of the new songs now.

What’s your favourite music on the album?

I really like all of them.

On this album, you confront racism, hate xenophobia and abuse. And but your message in all three of the albums is, it is higher to like than hate one another. With the whole lot happening in our world, has something modified in that message?

Completely not. Love is what is going on to maintain us going. There’s a lot divisiveness and hate within the background, ruining our lives. getting folks to hate each other. However sooner or later when everyone will get collectively and says, as American folks we’re sick and uninterested in these politicians ruining our lives, we’re all going to stay collectively and make the modifications we need to make in our nation.

Do you consider with all of the divisiveness in our nation that we will really heal?

I actually do not know. I definitely do not have a crystal ball, however I can definitely hope that issues can get higher.

You mentioned that after your son was born you grew to become much more dedicated to creating the world a greater place. Are you continue to hopeful about this?

If you happen to’re not hopeful, you are going to be a reasonably depressing particular person. I believe you’ve received to have a constructive perspective and hope that issues can presumably solely get higher. Modifications may be made. I assume I’m hopeful, however I get discouraged and upset and indignant generally. In fact, I am solely human proper? Proper. However I am positively hopeful as a result of I can not have that perspective, particularly when my baby has his entire life forward of him. And I need to be sure that he stays and stays hopeful, too, so he can reside a very good life.

You have been not too long ago performing in in Amsterdam and Poland. While you’re touring, do you ever get an opportunity to see something of the nation or is it simply examine into the resort, do a soundcheck, play and go away?

We had a few days off in between which was good, however they misplaced my baggage. I used to be 10 days in Europe with out something, so I needed to go and decide up issues I wanted. They by no means discovered my baggage once more.

Do you discover that totally different cultures react in a different way to your songs?

No, I believe that music is the one common factor that everyone can agree on. Relying on the music, I believe folks react just about the identical all around the globe. They get the texture.

Do you get homesick whenever you’re on the highway?

I miss sleeping in my very own mattress and I simply miss my child a lot.

While you’re dwelling an excessive amount of, as in throughout COVID, do you need to be on the highway?

Oh, no, no, it isn’t essentially being on the highway what I miss. I miss singing. I miss being on stage.

Is touring exhausting?

Very a lot so. Firstly, journey has been very troublesome. They’re canceling flights and simply doing no matter sort of craziness they need to. It has been mayhem. After I was in Europe, the safety strains have been two hours lengthy. And it takes two hours to examine into your flight, so you need to be on the airport 4 hours earlier than your flight.

Has touring different cultures modified your life in any approach?

Completely. The primary time I went to Spain I used to be 9 years previous, and I went with my dad. And at that time, I knew that no matter I did in my life, I would be touring. I knew even then the significance of getting out and culturally interacting with every kind of individuals.

What’s your favourite nation?

I really like so a lot of them. I really like Switzerland and Norway, Turkey, Spain. Italy. The listing goes on and on for me.

Have you ever had any particular experiences interacting with folks whenever you’re on the highway?

At all times. When folks inform me about how my songs have an effect on their lives, meaning the whole lot to me. I really like that.