[rating=9.00]
Nashville, Will Kimbrough, Mary Gauthier, John Prine and Emmylou Harris all suggest that this must be an Americana record, right? Yes and no. Genre is not important to Shemekia Copeland, today’s foremost contemporary female blues singer. After all, this is the fourth consecutive album she’s made in Music City, three with Oliver Wood producing and now with Will Kimbrough at the helm.
What is important to Copeland are good songs and stellar players. America’s Child has all of those plus a newfound fiery inspiration and the deep, from-the-gut vocals that define her singular style. Make no mistake – Copeland is a blues singer, first and foremost.
Copeland fervently believes each album should make its own statement and that each should be markedly different from the other. She’s been on the path of interpreting songs from roots writers and exploring the talents of Nashville’s musicians. Americana Instrumentalist of the Year and premier singer-songwriter Will Kimbrough, who played guitar on Shemekia’s previous 2015’s Wood-produced Outskirts of Love, also plays scorching guitar here while handling the producer role. Copeland turns to some our best writers for her material.
Copeland’s career-long manager and principal songwriter John Hahn teamed with Mary Gauthier for the new hymn for unity, “Americans” and the acoustic plea of relief from this fear-laden political climate, “Smoked Ham and Peaches.” Hahn and Kimbrough co-penned the opening track “Ain’t Got Time to Hate,” a perfect campaign song for the upcoming elections by the way. Kimbrough and Hahn also wrote the scathing “Would You Take My Blood?” With these two tracks, it’s easy to draw lyrical and emotional parallels to Kimbrough’s own pre-Trump era Americanitis.
John Prine, with perhaps his strongest career vocal, joins Shemekia for a duet of his own “Great Rain.” (secretly, or not, most roots singers long to be blues singers). Hahn teamed with Oliver Wood for the imagery and metaphor rich “Such a Pretty Flame” and the Nolans and Morrisons for the rollicking country “The Wrong Idea.” Copeland also makes it a point to cover one of her father’s, the late Blues Hall of Famer Johnny ‘Clyde’ Copeland’s songs, selecting the smoldering ballad “Promised Myself,” with a searing guitar solo from the iconic Steve Cropper. She also renders bluesy roots singer-songwriter Kevin Gordon’s rave-up “One I Love.” (Gordon just released his own potent new album Tilt and Shine). On another of the disc’s many strong tracks, she covers the blues team of Terry Abramson and Derrick Procell’s “In the Blood of the Blues,” a song that fits her persona perfectly and just pulsates with Kimbrough’s incendiary guitar. Finally, she transforms The Kinks’ “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” into a defiant blues statement while choosing to close quietly with the traditional lullaby “Go to Sleepy Little Baby.” This well-paced album is primarily blues, infused with roots instrumentation and flairs. It’s easily the best collection of songs Copeland has ever put on an album.
If you’ve been fortunate to have seen Shemekia perform live, you know she never phones it in. She never holds back her passion. And, this is by far the most courageous, purposeful statement she’s ever made on a record. Upon the birth of her son, Johnny Lee Copeland in late 2016, and by the current political climate, Copeland reflected, “After having a child, I started thinking about the world I brought him into, how it actually is and how I wished it was and all the thing he will have to go through. And to live in this world today, you have to have a strong foundation like I did to make it through. So that’s what ‘America’s child’ means to me. I’m truly grateful to all the artists that joined me on this record-it wasn’t about the genre for anyone, it was about the music and mutual love and respect.”
Those musicians, in addition to those already mentioned, include Rhiannon Giddens plucking a sparkling African banjo on “Smoke Ham and Peaches,” J.D. Wilkes, front man for The Legendary Shack Shakers blowing harp on “Ain’t Got Time to Hate” and “One I Love.” Contributions come from veteran pedal steel guitarists Al Perkin and Paul Franklin, Kenny Sears on fiddle; and the rhythm section of bassist Lex Price and drummer Pete Abbott. And, to round out this amazing cast, consider these background vocalists who appear on select tracks: Gauthier, Harris, Prine, Gretchen Peters, Tommy Womack, Kate Pruitt, Lisa Oliver-Gray and Kristi Stassinopoulou. Whether it be fiddle, banjo, or pedal steel, or his own organ, Kimbrough masterfully adds the right instrument to color each song.
The album is all about the healing power of music and it covers every emotion from anger to tenderness, to joy and positivity. No other singer could bring intensity to this material as well as Copeland does. She has not only made her strongest album. She has made a career statement that should earn both she and Kimbrough plenty of Grammy nods.
