Oliver Wood Is “Taking Shemekia Copeland Out Of Her Blues Box”
Oliver Wood Is “Taking Shemekia Copeland Out Of Her Blues Box”
“She
has a big bright voice with a switchblade rasp.” -NY Times, 8.22.05
“Copeland is a strong voice with an even stronger will.” -Heart &
Soul, Feb/March 2009
For her new record ‘Never Going Back’ (out
2.24 on Telarc), Shemekia Copeland enlisted producer Oliver Wood, one
half of the Wood Brothers band (the other is Chris Wood, member of
Medeski, Martin & Wood), to help bring her beyond her blues comfort
zone and coax the genre into a new generation.
Reflecting on the
experience of working with Shemekia on ‘Never Going Back, ‘ Wood
highlights the limitlessness of Shemekia’s talent and artistic bravery:
On
Shemekia’s voice: “We all know Shemekia can belt out a vocal as well as
anyone, so we wanted to give her a chance to be a little more subtle at
times – she happens to be a blues singer, but she could have become any
kind of singer she wanted- she’s very talented.”
On the
production style: “Production-wise we were going for rawness and
emotion. We made a real effort not to overdo things or polish things.
The idea was to keep things raw, loose and pretty spare.”
On the
song selection: “This album has elements of blues, gospel, jazz and
country…styles that have all blended and overlapped for a long time.
[Shemekia] wanted to express herself differently than she had in the
past, so we chose from an eclectic bag of tunes. Not that they don’t
have blues in them–Shemekia gives the blues to anything she sings!”
On
Shemekia’s personality and courage: “Shemekia is very talented, has a
great voice, is fun to work with and is a mostly flexible non-diva- I’d
work with her anytime! She seemed to really trust me and the ideas I
had – and we both had a vision of doing something different…so she
really let me push her out of her comfort zone a few times. It’s a
little scary to try a new direction and put something out that you’ve
never done before and aren’t known for – it took courage to do that and
I think she grew by pushing herself…and the results are fantastic.”