Shemekia Copeland to Headline Music Haven Concert, July 28th

SCHENECTADY – World-renowned vocalist Shemekia Copeland will be headlining the Music Haven Concert Series’ Blues BBQ in Schenectady on Thursday, July 28th. Her latest Alligator Records album, Uncivil War, recently received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Uncivil War builds on the musically and lyrically adventurous territory Copeland’s been exploring for over a decade, blending blues, R&B and Americana into a sound that is now hers alone.

When Shemekia first broke on the scene with her jaw-dropping Alligator Records debut CD Turn The Heat Up, she instantly became a blues and R&B force to be reckoned with. With each subsequent release — Uncivil War is her ninth album — Copeland’s music has evolved. She continues to broaden her musical vision, melding blues with more rootsy, Americana sounds, and singing about the world around her, shining light in dark places with confidence and well-timed humor. Her recordings have won her worldwide acclaim and dozens of awards. Her previous album, America’s Child, featuring a duet with John Prine and accompaniment from Mary Gauthier and Rhiannon Giddens (among others), was named by MOJO magazine as the #1 blues release of 2018. In addition to her three Grammy nominations, Copeland has won a total of 15 Blues Music Awards and more than 20 Living Blues Awards over the course of her career.

DownBeat magazine named Copeland as its 2021 Blues Artist Of The Year, and Uncivil War as the Blues Album Of The Year in the magazine’s 69th Annual Critics’ Poll. She received three 2020 Blues Music Awards and won both the Living Blues magazine’s Critics’ and Readers’ Awards for Album Of The Year and Blues Artist Of The Year (Female). In additional, she received the UK Blues Award for International Blues Artist Of The Year, and UK tastemaker music magazine MOJO named Uncivil War the #1 Blues Album of 2020. Rolling Stone says, “Shemekia Copeland is a powerhouse, a superstar…She can do no wrong.” Alligator Records will release Done Come Too Far, Copeland’s powerful, trailblazing new album, on August 19.

Copeland’s soulful and uncompromising Uncivil War tackles the problems of contemporary American life head on, with nuance, understanding, and a demand for change. It also brings Copeland’s fiercely independent, sultry R&B fire to songs more personal than political. NPR Music calls Shemekia “authoritative” and “confrontational” with “punchy defiance and potent conviction. It’s hard to imagine anyone staking a more convincing claim to the territory she’s staked out—a true hybrid of simmering, real-talking spirit and emphatic, folkie- and soul-style statement-making.”

Uncivil War—recorded in Nashville with award-winning producer and musician Will Kimbrough at the helm—is a career-defining album for Copeland. Among the most striking songs on the album are the true, torn-from-history story of the last slave ship to reach America, Clotilda’s On Fire, and the topical title track, a courageous plea for unity in a time of disunion. Guests on Uncivil War include Americana superstar Jason Isbell, legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, Grammy-nominated young guitar star (and Alligator label mate) Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, rocker Webb Wilder, rock icon Duane Eddy, mandolin wizard Sam Bush, dobro master Jerry Douglas, and The Orphan Brigade providing background vocals. 

Shemekia Copeland has performed thousands of gigs at clubs, festivals and concert halls all over the world, and has appeared in films, on national television, NPR, and in magazine and newspapers. She’s sung with Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Carlos Santana, Dr. John, James Cotton and many others. She opened for The Rolling Stones and entertained U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait. Jeff Beck calls her “amazing.” Santana says, “She’s incandescent…a diamond.” In 2012, she performed with B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Buddy Guy, Trombone Shorty, Gary Clark, Jr. and others at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama. She has performed on PBS’s Austin City Limits and was the subject of a six-minute feature on the PBS News Hour. Currently, Copeland can be heard hosting her own popular daily blues radio show on SiriusXM’s Bluesville.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The event on Thursday, July 28th, will run from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm; admission is free. For more information, please view Music Haven’s website or call (518)660-0675.