Charon Shemekia Copeland (born April 10, 1979) is an American

electric blues Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930 ...

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

. To date, she has released ten albums and been presented with seven

Blues Music Award The Blues Music Awards, formerly known as the W. C. Handy Awards (or "The Handys"), are awards presented by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to foster blues heritage. The awards were originally named in honor of W. C. Handy, " ...

Career

Copeland was born in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, United States. She is the daughter of Texas

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

guitarist and singer

Johnny Copeland John Clyde Copeland (March 27, 1937 – July 3, 1997) was an American Texas blues guitarist and singer. In 1983, he was named Blues Entertainer of the Year by the Blues Foundation. He is the father of blues singer Shemekia Copeland. In 2017, Co ...

. She began singing at an early age and her first public performance was at the

Cotton Club The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940).Elizabeth Winter"Cotton Club of Harlem (1923- )" Blac ...

when she was about 10. She began to pursue a singing career in earnest at age 16. When her father's health began to decline, he took Shemekia on tour as his opening act, which helped establish her name on the blues circuit. Copeland graduated in 1997 from

Teaneck High School , motto_translation = To enrich the mind and improve the character , fundingtype = Public , schooltype = high school , grades = 9– 12 , district = Teaneck Public Schools , enrollment = 1,239 (as of 2021–22) , faculty = ...

Teaneck, New Jersey Teaneck () is a township in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a bedroom community in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 39,776, reflecting an increase of 516 (+1.3%) f ...

. She landed a

recording contract A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...

with

Alligator Records Alligator Records is an American, Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971. Iglauer was also one of the founders of the '' Living Blues'' magazine in Chicago in 1970. History Iglauer started the label using ...

, which issued her debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

, ''Turn the Heat Up!'' in 1998, following it up with a tour of the blues festival circuit in America and Europe. Her second album, ''Wicked'', was released in 2000 and featured a duet with one of her heroes, Ruth Brown. It earned her three

s. The follow-up record, ''Talking to Strangers'', was produced by

Dr. John Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer and songwriter. His music encompassed New Orleans blues, jazz, funk, and R&B. Active as a session musician from ...

, and in 2005 she released ''The Soul Truth'', produced by Steve Cropper. In 2008, Copeland signed with Telarc International, and released her first album, ''Never Going Back'', with that label in February 2009. She won the "Rising Star - Blues Artist" in ''

Down Beat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

'' magazine's critics poll announced in the December 2009 issue. Copeland participated in the Efes Pilsen Blues Festival in 2009. On June 12, 2011 at the 2011 Chicago Blues Festival, Copeland was presented

Koko Taylor Koko Taylor (born Cora Anna Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues and soul blues. Sometimes called "The Queen of the Blues", she was known for ...

's crown, and officially given the honor as the new "Queen of the Blues" by Koko Taylor's daughter, Cookie Taylor. In 2013, Copeland was nominated for a

in the Contemporary Blues Female Artist' category. She won the title in 2016. In October 2015, her album ''Outskirts of Love'' peaked at number 6 in the '' Billboard''

Top Blues Albums The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in ''Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, pr ...

chart. In 2017 she participated in Mahindra Blues Festival, Mumbai. In August 2018, her next album, ''America's Child'', entered the same listing at number 3. The recording won both the 'Album of the Year' and 'Contemporary Album of the Year' titles at the 40th Blues Music Awards in 2019. In May 2020, Copeland was presented with another Blues Music Award in the 'Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year' category. In July 2022 she won the award ''Blues artist of the year'' at the annual ''Downbeat Critics Poll''. She released her tenth studio album, ''Done Come Too Far,'' on August 19, 2022

Discography

*1998: ''Turn the Heat Up'' *2000: ''Wicked'' *2002: ''Talking to Strangers'' *2005: ''The Soul Truth'' *2009: ''Never Going Back'' *2011: ''Shemekia Copeland - Deluxe Edition'' *2012: ''33 1/3'' *2015: ''Outskirts of Love'' *2018: ''America's Child'' *2020: ''Uncivil War'' *2022: ''Done Come Too Far''

References

External links

Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Copeland, Shemekia 1979 births Living people 20th-century African-American women singers American blues singers American gospel singers People from Harlem Soul-blues musicians Teaneck High School alumni 21st-century American singers 21st-century American women singers Alligator Records artists 21st-century African-American women singers