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First Posted: 2/10/2015

WILKES-BARRE — Shemekia Copeland is proud to say she is a blues singer, but she doesn’t want to be limited by that label.

“I am a blues singer, there’s no doubt about that,” she said. “I’m proud of it. But that doesn’t limit me in any way. I always have people who have been to one of my shows whether by force or curiosity who say that they are not a big blues fan, but that they love my music. And I say to them, ‘But you are a blues fan, and you just don’t know it.”’

Copeland will visit the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts in Wilkes-Barre on Friday, Feb. 20, at 8 p.m. as part of the “Live from the Chandelier Lobby” concert series.

She has previously performed at the Kirby Center, but this will be her first time as headline of the lobby concert series. She welcomes the opportunity to perform at a variety of venues. “I’ve performed at festivals, dinner clubs, every setting,” Copeland said. “It’s cool. It helps to mix it up. You just never know what to expect. Some festivals you expect to be rowdy and they are mellow and relaxed and the dinner club crowd can be rowdy. That’s the beauty of live performances.”

The singer’s roots are in blues music.

“Blues is evolving and growing,” she said. “It’s always been in the content of my songs whether I jazz it up or funk it up. With blues, I can be all that.”

She is in the process of recording her third album which will be released sometime in the fall. She calls the forthcoming record “more personal” than her previous ones.

Copeland grew up as a self-described “records person” so that partly explains her reluctance to pin labels on musical genres. “When I went into a record store, there were just records,” she said. “There was no separation of blues, rock or country. It was just the artist. And that’s the way it should be. Someone told me once that the only labels for music should be good music or bad music.”

But blues is where she made a name for herself, having been nominated for two Grammys. She has opened for the Rolling Stones, headlined at the Chicago Blues Festival, scored critics choice awards on both sides of the Atlantic (The New York Times and The Times of London), shared the stage with such luminaries as Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Mick Jagger, and Eric Clapton, and has even performed at the White House for President and Michelle Obama.

Blues is in her blood. She is the daughter of the late Texas blues guitar legend Johnny Clyde Copeland. But it was Dad who taught her not to rest on her laurels. And despite the pressures of having the Copeland name, she said there was no downside to growing up in a musical family.

“Even though my dad was on the road, he was always present in my life as a child,” Copeland said. “He was very spiritual and he taught me to pray. And two things he always told me about the business were to always show up on time and never read the press. If they say good things about you, and you start to believe, you will get arrogant. And if they say bad things about you, and you start to believe it, you will get bitter and angry.”

Instead, like many blues artists, Copeland focuses on her gratitude for the ability to be able to do something she loves and to make a living by doing so.

“You never know what opportunities you will have, so I take it year by year, month by month and day by day,” she said. “It could all be here one day and gone the next.”