SHEMEKIA COPELAND TO
APPEAR ON NPR'S WEEKEND EDITION SATURDAY
Host Scott Simon Talks To
Copeland About Outskirts Of Love
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NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday
will air an interview and performance with singer Shemekia Copeland on
October 10. Host Scott Simon talks to Copeland about her new CD, Outskirts Of Love, and
her life as "a fresh, gripping roots music performer." (Wall Street Journal)
MOJO magazine
says, "It is Copeland’s thrilling voice, part Koko Taylor, part Mavis
Staples and capable of incredible expression, that makes Outskirts Of Love so
super-special. Spectacular, stirring, sanctified and sassy…at the crossroads
where funk meets blues rock. Her band, led by producer Oliver Wood, and
featuring guests Billy F Gibbons, Robert Randolph, Alvin Youngblood Hart and
Will Kimbrough, is faultless throughout."
Copeland’s return to Alligator
Records with Outskirts
Of Love (she recorded four albums for the label from 1998
through 2006) finds her at her most charismatic. She mixes freshly written
material with thrilling reinventions of songs originally recorded by Solomon
Burke, ZZ Top, Jesse Winchester, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Creedence
Clearwater Revival, Jesse Mae Hemphill and her father, the late Johnny Clyde
Copeland. The result is Copeland’s most musically adventurous album of her
still-evolving career.
With a voice that is alternately sultry, assertive and roaring, Copeland’s wide-open vision of contemporary blues, Americana, roots and soul music showcases the evolution of a passionate artist with a modern musical and lyrical approach. Whether she’s belting out a raucous blues-rocker, firing up a blistering soul-shouter, bringing the spirit to a gospel-fueled R&B rave-up or digging deep down into a subtle, country-tinged ballad, Shemekia Copeland sounds like no one else.
Copeland has performed thousands
of gigs at clubs, festivals and concert halls all over the world and has
appeared on national television, NPR, and in newspapers, films and magazines.
She is a mainstay on countless commercial and non-commercial radio stations. She's
sung with Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Mick Jagger, Keith
Richards, Carlos Santana, James Cotton and many others. She opened for The
Rolling Stones and entertained U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait. Jeff Beck calls
her “f*cking amazing.” Santana says, “She’s incandescent…a diamond.” In 2012,
she performed at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama. Afterward,
Jagger (with whom she sang) sent her a bottle of champagne.
With Outskirts Of Love and
a packed tour schedule, Copeland has
her eyes fixed firmly on the future as she continues to break new musical
ground. "I want to keep growing, to be innovative," she says. “I’m a
lifer, singing about things that are important to me, using my music to
help people. My dad always said ‘we’re all connected.’ I’m an old soul marching
to the beat of my own drum,” she continues, “and right now I’m making the most
exciting music of my career.”
