Shemekia Copeland, the socially conscious second-generation blues singer with strong ties to Nashville and Americana music, ascended to her highest career plateau yet on Sunday by winning the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award at the Blues Foundation’s 42nd Blues Music Awards. She led all winners with two other trophies: Contemporary Female Blues Artist and Contemporary Blues Album for her passionate 2020 release Uncivil War.
Copeland, daughter of the late Harlem-based guitar player and singer Johnny Clyde Copeland, burst onto the blues scene before she turned 20 years old after being signed to Chicago's Alligator Records. She won her first of many Blues Music Awards in 2001. In recent years, she's directly taken on America's racial and political divides with acclaimed albums America's Child and Uncivil War, which brought on board Nashville musicians including producer Will Kimbrough.
Double award winner Christone “Kingfish” Ingram from Clarksdale, MS kept the spotlight on the blues’ rising generation, as the 22-year-old built on his triumphant five-award 2020 with two prizes, that of Guitarist of the Year and Contemporary Blues Male Artist. He will release his second album in late July, and he performed on the taped virtual webcast. The Blues Foundation held its annual awards online for the second year running, hosted this year by L.A.-based BigLlou Johnson.
Veterans were in the mix in a big way however, as 87-year-old Bobby Rush followed up his Grammy Award for his album Rawer Than Raw with Sunday’s Acoustic Blues Album of the Year award. The Soul Blues Female Artist award went to soul and R&B icon Bettye LaVette. And five-decade veterans Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite shared two trophies for their rollicking 100 Years Of Blues, which won Traditional Blues Album and the night’s overall Album of the Year.
Curtis Salgado, recently a guest on WMOT, was named the Contemporary Soul Blues Male Artist Of The Year for the sixth time.
A complete list of winners follows:
B.B. King Entertainer
Shemekia Copeland
Band of the Year
Rick Estrin & The Nightcats
Best Emerging Artist Album
Harlem
King Solomon Hicks
Blues Rock Album
Mike Zito and Friends – Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Tribute to Chuck Berry
Mike Zito
Soul Blues Album
That’s What I Heard
Robert Cray Band
Traditional Blues Album
100 Years of Blues
Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite
Contemporary Blues Female Artist
Shemekia Copeland
Soul Blues Female Artist
Bettye LaVette
Traditional Blues Female Artist
Rory Block
Instrumentalist – Bass
Danielle Nicole
Instrumentalist – Guitar
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Instrumentalist – Horn
Jimmy Carpenter
Album of the Year
100 Years of Blues
Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite
Song of the Year
“All Out of Tears” written by Walter Trout, Marie Trout, and Teeny Tucker
Acoustic Blues Album
Rawer Than Raw
Bobby Rush
Contemporary Blues Album
Uncivil War
Shemekia Copeland
Acoustic Blues Artist
Keb’ Mo’
Blues Rock Artist
Mike Zito
Contemporary Blues Male Artist
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Soul Blues Male Artist
Curtis Salgado
Traditional Blues Male Artist
John Primer
Instrumentalist – Drums
Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith
Instrumentalist – Harmonica
Kim Wilson
Instrumentalist – Piano
Anthony Geraci
Instrumentalist – Vocals
Ruthie Foster
