It’s popular among blues enthusiasts to classify early regional styles by stereotyping them. We talk of the intense, emotionally explosive Delta blues (Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson) and the melodic, tightly structured mid-Atlantic blues of Georgia and the Carolinas (Blind Willie McTell, Blind Boy Fuller, Curley Weaver and Fred McMullen). Then there are the sparse, lonesome blues of Texas, featuring sustained guitar phrases, a call-and-response interplay between voice and instrument, and the alternation of good-time ribaldry and a brooding introspection (Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin’ Hopkins).
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In Texas as well there was much cross-pollination and variety. Taught by Blind Lemon Jefferson, Hopkins chugged out his hoedownlike guitar boogies interspersed with his own distinctive autobiographical tales–of his struggles with whiskey, the law, recalcitrant women, and recurrent waves of despair. Meanwhile, the pianists collectively known as the Santa Fe school were traveling between Richmond, Galveston, Houston, and the lumber camps and oil fields of Texas and Louisiana. These musicians incorporated diverse influences from Kansas City and New Orleans, including jazz and ragtime, as well as continuing their own regional traditions. Often they’d play with the guitarists, and musical ideas would get passed back and forth.
The rich cross-fertilization that occurred in Texas and Louisiana eventually produced some of the most varied music to emanate from any area. Beginning in Texas in the 1930s, and continuing into the postwar years in both Texas and California, artists such as T-Bone Walker (who’d once worked as “eyes” guiding Blind Lemon Jefferson) and Lloyd Glenn forged a new, profoundly sophisticated and subtle blues out of the myriad influences with which they’d grown up. A young Texas musician coming of age in the 40s or 50s, trying to develop a sound of his own, had at his disposal a virtual smorgasbord from which to choose.
It’s that gentleness that keeps Copeland’s music from descending into the usual raunch-blues cliches. “Texas Party,” one of his trademark numbers, is a burner that features Leyasmeyer’s New Orleans-tinged keyboard churning furiously beneath the smooth flow of Copeland’s improvisation in a way that preserves the song’s roadhouse exuberance while elevating it to an entirely new level. Even at his most uninhibited and furious, Copeland has a sense of dignity that’s a welcome relief from the “boogie till you puke” antics that too often pollute such hard-partying songs.
Whether shouting out a raucous party tune or leading the audience in an Otis Redding-like gospel rave-up to complete the set, Johnny Copeland melds passionate blues commitment with the eclecticism and relentless exploratory drive that characterize blues musicians from his part of the country. What sets him apart from many, however, is the high-minded sense of purpose he brings to his music. He speaks often of his respect for fellow musicians living and dead, and of his desire to both advance the blues as a musical form and help deserving artists become better known. Songs like “Around the World” and a tune he wrote during an earlier African tour in 1982, “Nature Song,” are evidence on a more personal level of a reflective spirit. With the joyful exuberance of his music and his own unique approach to artistic and personal growth, Johnny Copeland represents the living blues heritage at its most eloquent.
