Shemekia Copeland's blues; Ghazal's Indo-Persian fusion
By Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., April 6, 2001) - When you listen to her robust, gritty voice, and take into account her lineage as the daughter of the late Texas blues guitar legend Johnny Clyde Copeland, it seems inevitable that Shemekia Copeland would have wound up singing the blues.

But the 22-year-old Grammy-nominated blues singer - who performs on Friday, April 6 at Club Helsinki - says there was nothing inevitable about her becoming a performer. "I thought I was going to be a psychiatrist, or anything else," said Copeland in a phone interview last week. "I never expected I'd be doing this." Copeland's father, however, knew that his daughter was destined to sing the blues. "He knew from he very beginning that that's what I'd be doing, even before I knew," said Copeland, who got her start singing with her father when she was still a teen-ager.

Growing up as she did in Harlem in the 1980s and '90s, Copeland was exposed to all kinds of music. But outside of her house, there was little exposure to blues music.
"Not anybody listened to blues when I was growing up, but anyone who wanted to be my friend had to," said Copeland, whose recent album, "Wicked," was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the recent Grammy Awards, alongside the likes of Taj Mahal, Bobby Rush and Koko Taylor, to whom she' s often been compared.
"I always liked blues. I came home and listened to blues. My friends thought I was nuts but I didn't care. I've always been a leader and not a follower."

Copeland acknowledges that for the most part young blacks have little interest in blues music, the traditional folk music of Southern African-Americans. "I ain't blind. I see mostly white audiences," she said. "It's tough to see, but I don't blame young black kids for not knowing about the music. It's not their fault. It's not what they're playing on MTV or VH-1 or on the radio. They're playing that hip-hop stuff. So how are they supposed to know about the blues?

"The difference between young blacks and white kids -- white kids are listening to rock and roll, and all rock and roll is blues-influenced. So when they listen to Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, all they talk about is old blues guys anyway. So they have a better way of getting into the music then young black kids. They have no way of knowing about it or hearing about it, because they ain't going to be listening to rock and roll. They don't like that stuff.

"It's very sad, very sad. I feel very blessed every day that my father was who he was and that I had an opportunity to know about it. Otherwise I'd probably be ignorant of my culture too." Copeland's "Wicked" (Alligator) is an eclectic collection of tunes ranging from the horn-laced r&b of "Not Tonight," the mid-tempo Southern soul of "Love Scene," the acoustic Delta blues of "Beat Up Guitar" to the rocking blues-boogie of "Wild Wild Woman."

"My taste is very broad," said Copeland. "I like what I do and I do what I like. A lot of people think I'm crazy, but they don't have to think -- I keep telling them I am!"
Tomorrow night, singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier returns to Club Helsinki. The Beartown Mountain Ramblers are scheduled to open the show.

Ghazal's Indo-Persian fusion

For a generation of music fans, Ravi Shankar was synonymous with Asian music, and with the coming together of Asian and Western influences, particularly in his influence on and collaborations with the Beatles' George Harrison.

While Kayhan Kalhor has yet to become a household name, or even as well known as Shankar still is in musical circles, he may well be this decade's answer to Shankar. What Shankar did for the sitar, Kalhor is doing for the Persian kamancheh, a violin-like ancient, bowed string instrument that antedates most bowed instruments throughout Asia and Europe.

By the mid-20th century, the Western violin had all but replaced the kamancheh in Iran. Kalhor has nearly singlehandedly been responsible for its revival in recent years, and his recordings incorporate both Iranian folk music and Persian classical modes.

One of Kalhor's many ongoing projects - which include solo albums and collaborations with the likes of Ardavan Kamkar, Sharam Nazeri, the Kronos Quartet and klezmer clarinetist Andy Statman - is Ghazal, his duo with sitarist Shugaat Husain Khan of North India. In Ghazal, Khan and Kalhor forge a cross-cultural conversation from their foundations in their respective musical traditions. The duo have released three albums since 1997, the latest being the lush, hypnotic "Moon Rise Over the Silk Road" (Shanachie), featuring original compositions and improvisations by Kalhor and Khan, with percussion by Swapan Chaudhuri.

Ghazal brings its "Silk Road Tour" to Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall at Williams College in Williamstown on Wednesday, April 11, at 8 p.m. Sandeep Das will accompany Kalhor and Khan on tabla for the performance.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on April 6, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]