Product Description
SHEMEKIA COPELAND
Blame It On Eve
Alligator Records
If you like message songs, topical songs, and political blues tunes, it’s likely you’re already a fan of Shemekia Copeland, the Harlem and Teaneck, N.J., raised daughter of Texas bluesman Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, who passed away in July 1997.
Ten of the 12 songs are co-written by John Hahn, her songwriting partner and longtime producer. As a former advertising executive, Hahn has become one of America’s top-shelf blues and roots songwriters.
Chockfull of topical songs and political commentaries, Copeland is in fine form on this album, something of a break from her three previous discs, Done Come Too Far, Uncivil War, and America’s Child.
She opens with two songs that draw the listener in, “Blame It On Eve,” and “Tough Mother,” the latter an autobiographical tribute to her late mother, Sandra Copeland, Johnny’s second wife. Sandra was always in her daughter’s corner, from her earliest days singing with dad at the Cotton Club, Manny’s Car Wash, and the Old Bay Restaurant in New Brunswick, N.J.
In fact, Copeland made her radio debut on my show, The Low-Budget Blues Program at Rutgers University, with her father when she was 16. To see her emerge as an international starlet carrying on blues traditions while helping the idiom continue to evolve has been fascinating to me over the years, as Johnny – and I, frankly – always knew teenaged Copeland would evolve into a fantastic performer.
She shines on “Blame It On Eve” “Tough Mother” “Tell The Devil,” and a song co-penned by contemporary folksinger Susan Werner, “Wine O’Clock.” Copeland also tells the story of Tee Tot Payne, the obscure African-American credited with teaching Hank Williams. As is often the case, she also does a magnificent job with one of her late father’s songs, “Down On Bended Knee.” The CD ends with Ronald Miller’s “Heaven Help Us All.”
Like her earlier releases recorded with Will Kimbrough in Nashville, a bevy of veteran players guest on Blame It On Eve, including Luther Dickinson of The North Mississippi Allstars, Charlie Hunter, lap steel player Jerry Douglas, post-punk-Americana rocker Alejandro Escovedo, and sacred steel player DeShawn Hickman, who contributes some tasty licks on “Tell The Devil.”
Blame It On Eve is a great collection of blues and roots music songs that demonstrate to cynical newcomers to modern blues and moldy figs just how broad and diverse blues music can be.
– Richard J. Skelly