Shemekia Copeland Wins Blues Music Award
Blues/R&B singing sensation Shemekia Copeland won the Blues Music Award for Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year on May 5 at the 37th Annual Blues Music Awards, held in Memphis at the Cook Convention Center. This is Copeland's ninth Blues Music Award and her fifth in this category. She has received 34 total nominations.
Copeland's latest CD, the celebrated Outskirts Of Love,received a Grammy Award nomination in the Best Blues Album category. The prestigious United Kingdom publication, The Blues magazine, named the CD the 2015 Album Of The Year. In the magazine's review of the record, writer Rev. Keith Gordon says, "Shemekia Copeland is one of the best singers performing today. A rich blend of blues, soul and roots-rock that will astound the casual listener while rewarding Copeland's longtime fans. Pure joy." Editor Ed Mitchell calls it "a mature masterpiece of modern blues."
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.
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.
NPR Music says, "Shemekia Copeland extends her definition of modern blues. She has crafted an album that speaks to the times. Copeland’s genre-melding fluidity would be for naught if she didn’t have such a powerhouse voice. She brings a perfect balance of authority and understatement to each song."
