Daughter of Texas blues guitarist and singer Johnny Copeland, Shemekia Copeland is a blues vocalist from Harlem, New York who began pursuing a career in music at age 16 when she joined her father on tour as his opening act. The early exposure helped her establish her name on the blues circuit, and by the time she graduated high school in 1997, she landed a record deal with Alligator Records. Copeland released her debut album Turn the Heat Up! in 1998, and subsequently toured the blues festival circuits in America and Europe. She earned critical acclaim in 2000 for her follow-up LP Wicked, which featured a duet with one of her idols, the Queen of R&B herself, Ruth Brown. Copeland dropped her fifth studio album, Never Going Back, in 2009.
