{"id":18140,"date":"2019-02-27T13:50:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T18:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=18140"},"modified":"2020-05-01T10:29:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T14:29:33","slug":"shemekia-copeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/shemekia-copeland\/","title":{"rendered":"Shemekia Copeland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 400px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23f4f4f4&amp;d=fm19_flip_book&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;hideShareButton=true&amp;pageNumber=17&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1>A Powerhouse Takes the Opera House<\/h1>\n<h5>Grammy-nominated blues singer Shemekia Copeland slides back into Maine.<\/h5>\n<h6><em><strong>Interview by Evelyn Waugh<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>\n<p>Chicago&#8217;s Queen of Blues returns to Waterville Opera House on March 9. The daughter of blues legend Johnny Copeland fell hard for Maine on music tours with her father. Today, Shemekia\u2019s drawing her own crowd. Her most recent album, America\u2019s Child, lofted to No. 3 on the Billboard Top Blues Albums charts last summer. We caught up with the award-winning artist soon after the announcement of her five Blues Music Awards nominations, including Album of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>PM: What keeps you coming back?<br \/>\nSC: I\u2019ve been coming to Maine ever since I was a young girl, with my dad. It\u2019s kind of a tradition\u2014the New England tour, you know. I love it.<\/p>\n<p>Did you travel with your father a lot?<br \/>\nOh my God, my dad would hit all the clubs up there. From Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston and all over Massachusetts, all over Maine. We were always up there.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the most important musical advice your father gave you?<br \/>\nIt has to be a part of you. You have to love it. And you have to be original.<\/p>\n<p>When will you tell that to your son?<br \/>\nAs soon as he can understand it.<\/p>\n<p>I loved your cover of the Kinks. Where\u2019d you find the inspiration to blend so many genres?<br \/>\nYou know, I just feel like we\u2019re all one big melting pot of music. Gosh, years ago when you went to a record store, the music wasn\u2019t broken up into sections. It was all mixed in together. That\u2019s the way it should be.<\/p>\n<p>Harlem, New Orleans, Texas\u2014these places all have a sound. What\u2019s Maine\u2019s sound?<br \/>\nThere are a lot of great musicians up there. I\u2019m friends with a lot of them. A lot of great bands come out of there. They have their own sounds. It\u2019s a mix of blues and funk and soul.<\/p>\n<p>What lullabies does a blues singer sing to her child?<br \/>\nWell, on my latest record I include \u201cGo to Sleepy Little Baby.\u201d I sing that. But, mostly, I sing Sam Cooke songs to him.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the longest time you went without singing a note\u2014and why?<br \/>\nOh, gosh, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve done that. Actually, last year I got sick. That was a time when I really rested my voice.<\/p>\n<p>What are your 30 most embarrassing seconds onstage? Take us there.<br \/>\nOne time I was in Europe with Taj Mahal, and his band was doing a song called \u201cI Need Your Lovin\u2019 Everyday.\u201d All I had to say was \u201cI need your lovin\u2019 everyday.\u201d I was so nervous that I couldn\u2019t do it. It got<br \/>\nto that part, and I was just like, oh my God\u2014what am I supposed to say?<\/p>\n<p>What about your 30 best?<br \/>\nProbably singing background for Mick Jagger. But anytime I\u2019ve ever<br \/>\nperformed with the greats, you know? Ruth Brown, Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, Solomon Burke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The daughter of blues legend Johnny Copeland fell for Maine on music tours with her father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[943],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personalities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18140"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18211,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18140\/revisions\/18211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}