Johnny Copeland was born March 27, 1937, in Haynesville, LA, about 15 miles south of Magnolia, AR (formerly Texarkana, a hotbed of blues activity in the 1920s 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 front man 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, Copeland was exposed, as a teen, 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, host to most of the city's best bluesmen during the 1950s — 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 1950s, 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 1960s, 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 moving to New York City 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.
Copeland 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, Copeland never realized he had inherited a congenital heart defect from his father. He disovered 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 recent innovation for patients suffering from congenital heart defects. In 1995, Copeland 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 and his always spirited concerts did not diminished all that much. After living 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.
Ghetto Child
Johnny Copeland Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Somebody, please won't you lend a hand?
I′m just the ghetto child
In this so-called, in this so-called free land
Somebody, somebody somewhere
Somebody, please won't you give a dime?
My mother, she's sick in the bed almost dying
Источник teksty-pesenok.ru
Now this is the part that move me so much right here
She said, "I know, I know I oughta be in school
But I went to school one mornin' and the teacher, she told
When you come back, child, have on some shoes"
I′m just the ghetto child
Somebody, please, please help the ghetto child
I'm just the ghetto child
In this so-called, in this so-called free land
The song "Ghetto Child" by Johnny Copeland brings to light the struggles of poverty and inequality faced by African-American communities in the United States in the 1970s. The song is about a little girl standing on the corner, begging for help as her mother lies sick in bed and her father is nowhere to be found. She is referred to as the "ghetto child" in a bitter irony of the so-called free land that America claims to be. The plea for help and the desperation in her voice is a call for social justice and equity.
The song sheds light on the economic and societal hardships faced by African-American families in the ghetto, where poverty, crime, and drugs are rampant. The little girl's desire to go to school, which is also her only way out of the ghetto, is thwarted by her inability to afford shoes. The lyrics highlight the vicious cycle of poverty that makes it impossible for children to have a better life and perpetuates the inequality that is still present in America today.
Overall, "Ghetto Child" is a powerful song that brings to light the harsh realities of American ghettos and the struggles of the people living within them. It is a call to arms for social justice and a reminder that the fight for equality is far from over.
Line by Line Meaning
Little girl standin' on the corner
A young girl is standing on the street corner
Somebody, please won't you lend a hand?
The young girl is asking for someone to help her
I'm just the ghetto child
The young girl identifies herself as a child from the ghetto
In this so-called, in this so-called free land
Despite living in a free and democratic country, she is still struggling as a child in the ghetto
Somebody, somebody somewhere
The young girl is calling for anybody to help her
Somebody, please won't you give a dime?
She is asking for a small amount of money to help her and her sick mother
My mother, she's sick in the bed almost dying
Her mother is seriously ill and in danger of dying
And I ain't seen, I ain't seen my daddy in a long time
The young girl's father has been absent for a significant amount of time
Now this is the part that move me so much right here
The following part of the song deeply affects the young girl
She said, 'I know, I know I oughta be in school
The young girl acknowledges that she should be in school
But I went to school one mornin' and the teacher, she told
One morning at school, the girl's teacher spoke to her
When you come back, child, have on some shoes'
The teacher told her that she needed shoes to attend school
Somebody, please, please help the ghetto child
The young girl pleads for help as a child from the ghetto
I'm just the ghetto child
The young girl repeats that she is a child from the ghetto
In this so-called, in this so-called free land
Once again, she expresses the contradiction of living in a free country but struggling in the ghetto
Writer(s): D. Malone, J. Copeland
Contributed by Avery F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Mikael Blascki
One of the greatest Bluesmen anywhere..he brought that down home Texas feel...some 5th ward soul.....miss you Johnny Clyde . . .
RealNigga TV
appreciate the love. I'm his oldest grandchild. With all due respect it's 3rd ward soul. Thanks again.
NDK
Damn.. this is good! The guitar, the organ.. and his voice!
Fred
I've had this fabulous song in my playlist for some time, but sung by Shemekia. I have now learned that it was written and sung by her father, Johnny, many years ago. I now want to hear them together - I'm convinced it'll be a landmark day in all my seventy one years.
DjTheDon614
I can see this being sampled in a HIP HOP Beat that guitar and organ is crazy
Arthur
Always loved the OV Wright recording of this one.. now I've discovered this version by the GREAT Johnny Copeland and also the version with his daughter Shemekia - incredible!
BK35
I absolutely adore Johnny Copeland.
Robson aliança do rock
O blues e sensacional essa musica e show
OmegaL88
Love it👍pure soul
Katina Hoyt
Living for the Copelands!!!!!!!