1. Midnight Fantasy 3:06
2. Make My Home Where I Hang My Hat 3:29
3. Down On Bended Knee 3:28
4. Jessanne 6:05
5. Bozalimalamu 3:21
6. Devil's Hand 3:09
7. Third Party 4:44
8. Conakry 4:12
9. Old Man Blues 4:47
10. When the Rain Starts Fallin' 4:17
11. Same Thing 3:59
12. I Wish I Was Single 4:58
13. Rock'n' Roll Lilly 1:59
14. North Carolina 3:35
15. Big Time 3:04
16. St. Louis Blues 7:02

Musicians:
Johnny Copeland (vocals, guitar)
John Liebman, Richie Fiegler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joel Perry, Jimmy Hyacinthe, Ken Pino (guitar) Brooklyn Slim (harmonica)
George Adams (soprano & tenor saxophones)
Joe Rigby (alto, tenor & baritone saxophones)
Byard Lancaster (alto & tenor saxophones)
Sam Furnace (alto & baritone saxophone)
Kotti Assale (alto saxophone)
Greg Alper, Arthur Blythe, Bert McGowen (tenor saxophone) 
John Pratt, Ben Bierman, Yusef Yancey (trumpet)
Garrett List, Bill Ohashi, George Lewis (trombone)
Ken Vangel (piano)
Anthony Brown (organ)
Don Whitcomb, Michael Merritt, Brian Miller (bass)
Candy McDonald, Jimmy Wormworth (drums)
Michael Finlayson, Halial, Jean Claude Kungnon (percussion)

Rounder raids the same four albums for another collection. This time producer Dan Doyle has programmed his selections willy-nilly rather than grouping them by album, as on Texas Twister. --- Frank John Hadley 1993, amazon.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto global-files

back

01. Down on Bending Knees (1963)
02. Just One More Time (1963) 
03. Heebie Jeebies (1963) 
04. Night Time Is the Right Time (1967) 
05. That's All Right Mama (1964) 
06. Let Me Cry (1963)? 
07. Late Hours (1960) 
08. Rock Me Baby (1960) 
09. Wella, Wella Baby (1963) 
10. Ghetto Child (1971) 
11. Mama Told Me (1963) 
12. Ain't Nobody's Business (1963) 
13. Baby Please Don't Go (1960) 
14. All These Things (1964) 
15. Working Man's Blues (1963) 
16. You Got Me Singing a Love Song (1987, Live) 
17. Travelling Blues (1987, Live) 
18. Drinking New York City Dry (1987, Live) 
19. Texas Party (1987, Live) 
20. Working Man's Blues (1963)

Compilations cd with recordings from the years 1963-1987.

Considering the amount of time he spent steadily rolling from gig to gig, Johnny "Clyde" Copeland's rise to prominence in the blues world in the early '90s wasn't all that surprising. A contract with the PolyGram/Verve label put his '90s recordings into the hands of thousands of blues lovers around the world. It's not that Copeland's talent changed all that much since he recorded for Rounder Records in the '80s; it's just that major companies began to see the potential of great, hardworking blues musicians like Copeland. Unfortunately, he was forced to slow down in 1995-1996 because of heart-related complications, yet he continued to perform shows until his death in July of 1997.

Johnny Copeland was born March 27, 1937, in Haynesville, Louisiana, about 15 miles south of Magnolia, Arkansas (formerly Texarkana, a hotbed of blues activity in the '20s and '30s). The son of sharecroppers, his father died when he was very young, but Copeland was given his father's guitar. His first gig was with his friend Joe "Guitar" Hughes. Soon after, Hughes "took sick" for a week and the young Copeland discovered he could be a frontman and deliver vocals as well as anyone else around Houston at that time.

His music, by his own reasoning, fell somewhere between the funky R&B of New Orleans and the swing and jump blues of Kansas City. After his family (sans his father) moved to Houston, a teenage Copeland was exposed to musicians from both cities. While he was becoming interested in music, he also pursued boxing, mostly as an avocation, and it is from his days as a boxer that he got his nickname "Clyde."

Copeland and Hughes fell under the spell of T-Bone Walker, whom Copeland first saw perform when he was 13 years old. As a teenager he played at locales such as Shady's Playhouse -- Houston's leading blues club and host to most of the city's best bluesmen during the '50s -- and the Eldorado Ballroom. Copeland and Hughes subsequently formed The Dukes of Rhythm, which became the house band at the Shady's Playhouse. After that, he spent time playing on tour with Albert Collins (himself a fellow T-Bone Walker devotee) during the '50s, and also played on-stage with Sonny Boy Williamson II, Big Mama Thornton, and Freddie King. He began recording in 1958 with "Rock 'n' Roll Lily" for Mercury, and moved between various labels during the '60s, including All Boy and Golden Eagle in Houston, where he had regional successes with "Please Let Me Know" and "Down on Bending Knees," and later for Wand and Atlantic in New York. In 1965, he displayed a surprising prescience in terms of the pop market by cutting a version of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" for Wand.

After touring around the "Texas triangle" of Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, he relocated to New York City in 1974, at the height of the disco boom. It seems this move was the best career move Copeland ever made, for he had easy access to clubs in Washington, D.C., New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Boston, all of which still had a place for blues musicians like him. Meanwhile, back in Houston, the club scene was hurting, owing partly to the oil-related recession of the mid-'70s. Copeland took a day job at a Brew 'n' Burger restaurant in New York and played his blues at night, finding receptive audiences at clubs in Harlem and Greenwich Village.

He recorded seven albums for Rounder Records, beginning in 1981 and including Copeland Special, Make My Home Where I Hang My Hat, Texas Twister, Bringing It All Back Home, When the Rain Starts a Fallin', Ain't Nothing But a Party (live, nominated for a Grammy), and Boom Boom; he also won a Grammy award in 1986 for his efforts on an Alligator album, Showdown! with Robert Cray and the late Albert Collins. Although Copeland had a booming, shouting voice and was a powerful guitarist and live performer, what most people don't realize is just how clever a songwriter he was. His latter-day releases for the PolyGram/Verve/Gitanes label, including Flyin' High (1992) and Catch Up with the Blues, provide ample evidence of this on "Life's Rainbow (Nature Song)" (from the latter album) and "Circumstances" (from the former album).

Because Copeland was only six months old when his parents split up, and he only saw his father a few times before he passed away, he never realized he had inherited a congenital heart defect from his father. He discovered this in the midst of another typically hectic tour in late 1994, when he had to go into the hospital in Colorado. After he was diagnosed with heart disease, he spent the next few years in and out of hospitals, undertaking a number of costly heart surgeries. Early in 1997, he was waiting for a heart transplant at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. As he was waiting, he was put on the L-VAD, a then-recent innovation for patients suffering from congenital heart defects. In 1995, he appeared on CNN and ABC-TV's Good Morning America, wearing his L-VAD, offering the invention valuable publicity.

Despite his health problems, Copeland continued to perform his always spirited concerts. After 20 months on the L-VAD -- the longest anyone had lived on the device -- he received a heart transplant on January 1, 1997 and for a few months, the heart worked fine and he continued to tour. However, the heart developed a defective valve, necessitating heart surgery in the summer. Copeland died of complications during heart surgery on July 3, 1997. --- Richard Skelly, allmusic.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto global-files

back

01. Nobody But You - 3:47					play  
02. Daily Bread - 4:05  
03. Texas Party - 2:42  
04. Flamin' Mamie - 4:01  
05. Pie in the Sky - 3:22					play  
06. I Was Born All Over - 4:43  
07. Cut Off My Right Arm - 4:06  
08. Beat the Boom Boom Baby - 4:56  
09. Blues Ain't Nothin' - 3:58  

Johnny Copeland (vocals, guitar); 
Joel Perry, Ken Pino (guitar); 
Ken Vangel (keyboards); 
Michael Merritt (bass); 
Dwayne "Cook" Broadnax (drums).

Sometimes Copeland's Texas shuffle blues just don't have any bite. He came perilously close on this set to having to depend on gimmicks and experience. Copeland couldn't find anyway to refresh material like "Beat the Boom Boom Baby" and "Pie in the Sky," although he tried hard with shouts, cries, and moans. He was more successful on "Nobody But You," "I Was Born All Over," and "Blues Ain't Nothin'," where his soul and gospel roots helped inject some life into the lyrics. His band tried to help matters, but really couldn't elevate the proceedings. If you're only a mild to casual fan, this wasn't one of Copeland's greatest. --- Ron Wynn, Rovi

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto global-files

back

1. Gonna Make My Home Where I Hang My Hat 2:55
2. Stealing 2:19                              play
3. Workin' Man's Blues 3:05
4. Ain't Nobody's Business 2:33
5. I've Gotta Go Home 2:49
6. Hurt Hurt Hurt 2:55
7. Somethin' You Got 2:34
8. Slow Walk You Down 2:46
9. Johnny Ace Medley 3:55
10. Tribute To Sam Cooke 2:58                 play
11. Little Coquette 3:00
12. Don't Tell Me 2:14
13. Four Dried Beans 2:31
14. Wake Up Little Susie 2:00
15. The Hip Hop 2:11
16. Stealing (Alternate Take) 2:18
17. Hurt Hurt Hurt (Alternate Take) 2:54
18. Johnny Ace Medley (Alternate Take) 3:55
19. Tribute To Sam Cooke (Alternate Take) 2:58
20. Four Dried Beans (Alternate Take) 2:30
21. Ain't Nobody's Business (Alternate Take) 2:34

The album is kicked off by a quartet of songs among the bluesiest herein , first among them numerically and "bluesically" , “Gonna Make My Home Where I Hang My Hat". This version is a stripped-down predecessor to 1982's Rounder title track. This is Johnny alone, gutbucket as all get-out and it is a rare treat. It's the single purest blues I've heard from Johnny and as raw as yesterday's batch of moonshine. Next up we have two more of Copeland's lost classics: "Stealing" and "Working Man's Blues", both of which are simply fantastic. No collection of Copeland's music is complete without these two crackers, nor for that matter any compilation of post-war Houston Blues. "Stealing" is a thumping devil's sermon well-preached by Copeland in a particularly leonine voice, and is not far off from the work of Guitar Slim at his best. As for "Working Man's Blues", this native Houstonian can tell you that somehow Copeland injected the totality of this city into one blues. Hyperbole? Perhaps. But, to me, this is one of the most evocative blues I have heard in many a moon. Great horn charts and pounding piano, along with Johnny's scraping rhythm and tasty solo, all conspire to summon up a legion of after-dark images of our mutual hometown.

Once in an interview Copeland was asked what to him was the blues. His one-word answer: "Texas". Nowhere else in his oeuvre is this conveyed more clearly. All of the above three tunes lead me to wonder what took the blues cognoscenti all those years to "discover" a man of such obvious talents? A spiky guitar intro heralds the arrival of Copeland's fried-in-batter re-make of Lady Day's standard "Ain't Nobody's Business", which builds nicely to a sanctified crescendo and closes out the blues quartet. Three of the next four numbers ("I've Gotta Go Home"; "Hurt, Hurt, Hurt"; "Somethin' You Get") are reminiscent of the Duke/Peacock big-band R&B sound pioneered by that label's legendary in-house bandleader, Joe Scott. "Somethin'" in particular finds Copeland in good voice, the band in fine fettle (especially the sax-man). The above tunes focus almost exclusively on Johnny's under-rated vocal abilities. This man could sing, guitar-god status notwithstanding!The odd tune out of this quartet, "Slow Walk You Down", is something of an oddity in that it would not sound particularly out of place on side two of Abbey Road.

Next we move to a duet of touching eulogies to those who preceded Copeland in the pantheon, made all the sadder by Johnny's recent death. The "Johnny Ace Medley" is also an utterly romantic slow-dance number, a smooth remembrance of the Bayou City's suave, tragic balladeer. Ace was found dead backstage at a Christmas Eve concert in 1954, his record atop the R&B charts, supposedly the victim of an unlucky game of Russian Roulette. It was whispered at the time, though never proven, that there were darker forces at work (read: Duke/Peacock boss Don Robey had him "whacked".) At any rate, like Sam Cooke's, Ace's early death robbed the world of years of great music."Coquette" and "Don't Tell Me" showcase Copeland very much in a Crescent City frame of mind. These are mellow, elegiac gulf coast R&B selections with Johnny's guitar accompanying an unknown singer. Each of these displays a strong affinity for Fats Domino, with the latter cut also a little reminiscent of that other Gulf Coast boxing bluesman, Champion Jack Dupree."Four Dried Beans" is an organ-driven rave-up, while the Everlys get the deep-fried Bayou City treatment on Copeland's version of their classic, "Wake Up Little Susie". A bare-bones dance number, "The Hip Hop", closes out the album'soriginal material.

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto hostuje global-files

back

1. Texas Party 
2. Make My Home Where I Hang My Hat 
3. Don't Stop By The Creek, Son 
4. Same Thing 
5. Copeland Special 
6. I Was Born All Over 
7. Claim Jumper 
8. When The Rain Starts Fallin' 
9. Johnny Gone 
10. Houston 
11. Bozalimalamu 
12. Blues Ain't Nothin'

Alto Saxophone - Koffi Assale, Arthur Blythe
Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone – Joe Rigby, Byard Lancaster, Sam Purnace
Bass Saxophone – Joe Rigby
Bass – Michael Merritt, Brian Miller, Don Whitcomb
Drums – Julian Vaughan, Dwayne 'Cook' Broadnax, Jimmy Wormworth, Mansfield Hitchman, Candy McDonald
Guitar – Joel Perry, Ken Pino, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Hyacinthe, Malina, John Liebman
Harmonica – Brooklyn Slim
Keyboards – Ken Vangel
Piano – Ken Vangel
Percussion – Halial, Jean-Claude Kungnon, Souliman Mohamed
Tenor Saxophone – Greg Alper, Bert McGowan
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – George Adams
Trombone – Bill Ohashi, George Lewis, Emmet King, Garrett List
Trumpet – John Pratt, Ben Bierman, Yusef Yancey

27 March 1937, Haynesville, Louisiana, USA, d. 4 July 1997, New York, USA. A former boxer, Johnny ‘Clyde’ Copeland was active as a guitarist and singer on the Houston blues scene during the late 50s and 60s. While there is no doubt as to Copeland’s blues credentials, throughout the 60s in particular, he recorded a wide body of genuinely top-drawer soul. Although all of his 60s soul tracks appear to have been recorded in Houston (from the 70s onwards, some were cut in Los Angeles), Copeland was a ‘label-hopper’ supreme. He made numerous singles for such labels as Mercury Records (‘All Boy’ 1958), Paradise, Golden Eagle (‘Down On Bending Knees’) and Crazy Cajun. His version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ was issued by New York-based Wand Records in 1965 and there were later albums for Atlantic Records. The renewed interest in the blues during the 70s brought a recording contract with Rounder Records, and Copeland’s Nappy Brown -influenced vocals were heard to good effect on a 1977 album with Arthur Blythe (saxophone). He joined the festival circuit, and a rousing performance at Chicago in 1984 with fellow Texan guitarists Albert Collins and Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown led to the Grammy-winning Showdown! (1985). This collaboration with Collins and Robert Cray included the Copeland originals ‘Lion’s Den’ and ‘Bring Your Fine Self On Home’. Later albums were released by Rounder and included Bringin’ It All Back Home, recorded in Africa. In 1995 he underwent major surgery following serious heart problems, and a benefit was held for him shortly before his death in 1997.---oldies.com

download (mp3 @VBR kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto global-files

back