{"id":615,"date":"2011-11-13T18:39:45","date_gmt":"2011-11-13T23:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=615"},"modified":"2019-09-12T21:56:04","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T01:56:04","slug":"shemekia-copeland-roils-jazz-at-lincoln-center-with-roadhouse-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/11\/shemekia-copeland-roils-jazz-at-lincoln-center-with-roadhouse-blues.html","title":{"rendered":"Shemekia Copeland roils Jazz at Lincoln Center with roadhouse blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

A blues-belter with a beautiful big voice and cred in the rockin’, bawdy, electric tradition, Shemekia Copeland<\/a>brought a funky good time to the elegant Allen Room of Jazz at Lincoln Center last Thursday night (and probably Friday, too), backed by a a tight four-man band, carrying a slew of fresh and catchy songs.<\/p>\n

It’s unusual to hear a woman in her early 30s be so powerfully plain-spoken, whether with a wide smile (“I’m a wild, wild woman, and you’re a lucky man”)<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/object>
\nor haunting shiver (“Never Going Back to Memphis” from her latest cd, Never Going Back<\/a>).<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

It’s even more unusual for a blues performer to warm up an NYC crowd in the comfortable but oh-so-polished 200+ seat venue against a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on Columbus Circle, Central Park West and 59th St. to the point where people are shouting “2 a.m.!” or clapping intuitively on the two and four beats. But Shemekia, daughter of the late Texas-out-of-Africa blues guitarist Johnny Copeland<\/a> who claims she’d been singing blues privately since she was 8 years old, did it. She was spontaneous — she doesn’t keep a set list, decides what to sing in the moment — and candidly funny. Not a tall woman and having curves, she struggled in a tight skirt to find a comfortable seat on a bar stool, adding that the taller stool she’d had for the first set wasn’t any better. “I guess I don’t know how to sit,” she shrugged, before singing a rather sentimental number about a beat up old guitar, acoustically and affectingly.<\/p>\n

Shemekia Copeland tours out of Chicago, though she was born in Harlem. She signed to Telarc Records<\/a> 9n 2009 after debuting on Alligator in 1997. She’s on tour constantly, has won a lot of awards and praise, and says she’s in New York City often, so I look forward to seeing her live again soon.<\/p>\n

howardmandel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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A blues-belter with a beautiful big voice and cred in the rockin’, bawdy, electric tradition, Shemekia Copelandbrought a funky good time to the elegant Allen Room of Jazz at Lincoln Center last Thursday night (and probably Friday, too), backed by a a tight four-man band, carrying a slew of fresh and catchy songs. It’s unusual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/shemekia.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-9V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":612,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/11\/iraq-vet-and-new-orleans-avant-gardist-wativ-on-first-visit-to-nyc.html","url_meta":{"origin":615,"position":0},"title":"Iraq vet and New Orleans avant-gardist WATIV on first visit to NYC","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Composer and improvising keyboardist William \"WATIV\" Thompson -- Mississippi-born, New Orleans-based and an Iraq war veteran who I profiled for NPR in 2005 (podcast below) when he was posting laptop computer music he created in Bagdad during free time from his counterintelligence duties --\u00c2\u00a0made his first visit to New York\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/hm-with-wativ-william-thompson.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/hm-with-wativ-william-thompson.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/hm-with-wativ-william-thompson.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/hm-with-wativ-william-thompson.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/hm-with-wativ-william-thompson.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/hm-with-wativ-william-thompson.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":267,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/11\/midnight_est_deadline_blues_co.html","url_meta":{"origin":615,"position":1},"title":"Midnight (EST) deadline, blues contest entries","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Prizes of Jazz at Lincoln Center tix for this weekend and dvds of Wynton Marsalis with Willie Nelson for the best blues lyrics or prose poem will be determined at 12:01 tonight (11\/11\/09). Several stunning (!?!) efforts have been received -- via the comments box below -- but I'm not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":296,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/02\/the_blues_in_nyc.html","url_meta":{"origin":615,"position":2},"title":"The blues in NYC","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"February 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My column\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/NYCblues\u00a0in City Arts - New York's Review of Culture, focuses on America's deep, dark musical strain as it is today in a blues-challenged city. It doesn't mention that Wynton Marsalis is the world's greatest blues trumpeter, as he proved last night playing \"bread and butter\" from the Count Basie\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":265,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/11\/jazz_at_lincoln_center_ducats.html","url_meta":{"origin":615,"position":3},"title":"Jazz at Lincoln Center ducats, Wynton-Willie dvd giveaways!","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Readers of this blog can win 2 tix for JALC's November 14 shows by Maceo Parker or the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra playing Mary Lou Williams, or autographed Wynton-Willie Nelson Play Ray Charles dvds. But in keeping with the inherent value of these prizes, I'm making the contest creative, not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":759,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2012\/01\/nea-jazz-masters-jazz-at-lincoln-center-live-and-webcast-smash.html","url_meta":{"origin":615,"position":4},"title":"NEA Jazz Masters @ Jazz at Lincoln Center live and webcast smash","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"January 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The glory of living American jazz musicians filled Jazz at Lincoln Center last night to celebrate the 30th annual National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Masters fellowships -- and some of the best news was the vitality of the music they played\u00c2\u00a0(webcast audio by WBGO and Sirius Radio,\u00c2\u00a0video at arts.gov).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/images.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":268,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/11\/winners_and_their_blues.html","url_meta":{"origin":615,"position":5},"title":"Winners and their blues","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Winners of this blog's first Blues Lyric Contest are suitably\u00c2\u00a0troubled -- and all get Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson\u00c2\u00a0Play the Music of Ray Charles DVDS to ease their weary minds. 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