Pittsburgh blues fest headliner discusses songs to make her son proud

PITTSBURGH ? Three of blues music's top contemporary songwriters and performing talents grace the stage this coming Wednesday and Thursday at Highmark Stadium.

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Fantastic Negrito and Shemekia Copeland highlight the two-day Highmark Blues & Heritage Festival, hosted by the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.

The mighty-voiced Copeland headlines opening night, paired with another highly regarded singer-songwriter, folk-blues artist Ruthie Foster.

What will that 90-minute, Copeland-Foster shared stage be like?

"I don't know how that's going to look," Copeland said Thursday in a phone interview, "but I know it's going to be a good time because we love each other."

A year ago exactly, Copeland performed a lively set that got spectators dancing at the short-lived Allegheny Overlook stage across the Allegheny River from PNC Park.

More:Tady column: Cultural District returns; Beaver Station faces decision

This time, she's performing along the Monongahela River at Highmark Stadium ? home of the Pittsburgh Riverhounds ? for the Wednesday night show that begins with two heritage-steeped, Grammy Award-winners ? Ranky Tanky of South Carolina at 5 p.m.; and Bay Area folk-blues singer Negrito, who has one of the year's highest-praised albums, at 6:15 p.m. Next on stage at 7:30 p.m. comes New Orleans blues and R&B artist Walter "Wolfman" Washington, with Foster and Copeland on at 8:45 p.m.

The Thursday lineup brings New Breed Brass Band at 5 p.m.; Pittsburgh's gone-national soul-rockers The Commonheart at 6:15 p.m.; guitar ace Ingram at 7:30 p.m. and English reggae group Steel Pulse at 8:45 p.m.

Tickets are $40 to $75 daily (two-day-passes available for $75 to $140) at blues.awaacc.org

On its website, the Highmark Blues & Heritage Festival states its mission "is about hope, roots and the connections that music makes across races, neighborhoods, and beliefs. We at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center celebrate that diversity and hope that you will join us, hoping for a more humane today and a brighter tomorrow."

Located at 980 Liberty Ave., in downtown Pittsburgh, the August Wilson center takes its name from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who once said his life changed for the better with a thrift shop purchase of a record by blues legend Bessie Smith.

Copeland embraces the concert festival's concept and origins.

"Are you kidding? I feel great about it," Copeland said. "For them to be putting it on, that's wonderful."

Copeland's a perfect fit, on the road supporting an August release, "Done Come Too Far," that frankly addresses societal ills and injustices, often from a resilient Black perspective.

Leadoff track "Too Far to Be Gone" and the title track mention Civil Rights victories and the road to equality still ahead. "Pink Turns to Red" deals with gun violence.

"I mean it's not just messages, it's what's happening right now," Copeland said. "I'm not trying to make records, I'm trying to create little pieces of art."

She said if the apocalypse comes, and a survivor from the future found one of her records, "they would know what was going on in the world.

"That's always been very important to me. I have a little boy, Johnny, who turns 6 on Christmas Eve," Copeland said. "I want him to be proud of his mommy, and respect her and think she was brave for singing about subjects that are uncomfortable but important. People say they are political, but they're not. It's what's happening right now."

Copeland agrees with a statement that another of the Highmark blues festival's stars, guitarist-singer "Kingfish" Ingram, had said in an interview last year, that the blues was some of the original protest music, but somehow the genre got away from that.

More:22-year-old guitar ace Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram talks tour headed to Jergel's

"That's right. I'm not the first person to do songs like these," Copeland said. "But at some point, it kind of stopped. I'm not sure why. But it's not anything new. That's what the blues is about."

Her music finds hope, too, as in the new track "Catfish & Bibles," about a raucous juke joint and store where everyone's welcome and accepted, no matter their race, gender or background. The lyrics matter-of-factly drop a line about "Louie and his husband Dan" dancing together.

It's not like mainstream country, hip-hop or rock songs are normalizing same-sex marital references.

"I know, right?" Copeland said. "We're talking about families now all looking different. Couples look different these days. I think it's important we talk about all of them. Everyone should feel included. That's the best part of America, though I think people seem to have forgotten that. Some are like, 'Let's just hate these people' when we're all really one and the same That's literally the best part of America."

Copeland aims for smiles on her new album's countrified "Fell in Love With a Honky" where a Black woman at the famed Nashville honky-tonk Tootsie's finds herself playing footsie with a white man who looks like the rodeo type. They fall in love, and soon he's cooking her chitlins and chicken-fried steak, and foregoing his favorite Hank songs to sing for her some Otis.

"Isn't that hilarious? People are asking is that autobiographical?" Copeland said. "Technically it is. I'm married to a Caucasian man, though he's a metalhead, not a country fan, which I thought would be funnier. I had fun doing that song, and I'm so happy people are reacting with the way I intended, as a song to make you happy."

But the mood shifts dramatically on the new album's next song, "The Dolls are Sleeping," a heart-wrenching look at sexual assault told through the eyes of a young girl victimized in her bedroom. The lyrics have impacted listeners, like the Australian journalist who began weeping during an interview with Copeland, saying he felt like that song understood him.

"He had been molested in boarding school. It happens to a lot of people," Copeland said. "Once again, one of those things. You write a song, but you never know who it's going to touch."

Copeland long ago ignored the advice she sarcastically sings about on the album's "Dumb It Down," preferring to be an artist of substance, not superficiality.

"For me, that was a very healing song," Copeland said. "I'm just so sick of reality TV that's not really reality. I'm so over it, you know what I mean?"

If you want a real-deal singer-songwriter, catch Copeland's performance in Pittsburgh.

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Pittsburgh blues fest headliner discusses songs to make her son proud