Since 1998, Texas blues singer
Shemekia Copeland has sought to present blues as an ever-present, breathing tradition, simultaneously historic and contemporary. In addition to her compelling work as a recording and performing artist, she furthers the blues gospel each weekday as a program host on Sirius XM.
Done Come Too Far is her third consecutive release to be recorded in Nashville with producer/guitarist
Will Kimbrough. Each set reflects on her experiences as a Black woman, mother, wife, artist, and American citizen.
Copeland doesn't consider herself to be political, but subjectively journalistic about what's happening in her country. 2018's
America's Child wove blues and Americana in celebrating the contradictory nature of her country's people, along with poignant asides about racism and economic inequality. 2020's
Uncivil War doubled down, using urban blues and hard rock to reflect on our obsession with firearms, conspiracy theories, and ideological conflicts.
Done Come Too Far seizes the musical reins from those records, combines them with powerful contemporary blues, R&B, and Americana, with lyrics from the depths of individual and collective experience.
Opener "Too Far to Be Gone" features guest slide guitar god
Sonny Landreth. Overdriven and noisy,
Copeland's transcendent, muscular alto soars above this choogling tale relating the inspirations of Rosa Parks ("A small thing like a seat on the bus/Changed life for the rest of us") and Reverend Doctor
Martin Luther King, Jr. ("You can kill a man but not a dream").
Landreth lays down a chunky groove, adding drama and pathos in his fills and accents. The swampy "Pink Turns to Red" weds blues and rockabilly in depicting the horror of increasingly recurring mass shootings. She underscores her worry in "The Talk." A sinewy, slow, dramatic electric blues,
Copeland's protagonist is, like her, a mother to a son. She is heartsick having to warn her child about threats and dangers he faces from law enforcement simply for being a Black male. "Gullah Geechee" is a banjo-driven, moaning folk-blues relating the tale of a couple torn apart by the scourge of slavery.
Susan Werner's "Why Why Why" is a heart-wrenching country ballad about the end of a romantic relationship with a glorious Wurlitzer piano and slide guitar framing
Copeland's vocal. She follows with the Cajun party anthem "Fried Catfish and Bibles," a zydeco stomper complete with bumping accordion. The title track features a guest duet vocal from
Cedric Burnside. A harrowing slow Delta blues (a defiant companion to "Too Far to Be Gone"), it offers a strident answer to "Gullah Geechee."
Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Barefoot in Heaven" is a swampy, bumping blues-rocker that unapologetically channels the righteous, social soul gospel of
Mavis Staples. "The Dolls Are Sleeping" is sparse, dramatic acoustic blues about the sexual abuse of a child in first person.
Copeland closes the set with her father's mean, wooly Texas-cum-Chicago blues "Nobody But You."
Done Come Too Far cements the achievement of her previous two outings with steely determination, courage, and commanding, almost limitless musicality. ~ Thom Jurek