Considering the amount of time he spent steadily rolling from gig to gig, J… Read Full Bio ↴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 1980s; it's just that major companies began to see the potential of great, hardworking blues musicians like Copeland. Unfortunately, Copeland was forced to slow down in 1995-96 by 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, 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.

Moon Is Full
Johnny Copeland Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I said the moon is full, I feel my love comin' down
I said the moon is full, I feel my love comin' down
You see I met this little girl, I don't think I'm gonna want to, want to, leave this town

All my friends call me crazy, you just don't know how I feel inside
All my friends call me crazy, you just don't know how I feel inside
You know I love this little girl, 'cause she's got the little pretty, pretty brown eyes

Gonna take that train in the mornin', I think I'm gonna go back home
Gonna catch that train in the mornin' y'all, I think I'm gonna go back home
And I know that my little girl know, oh that I won't be gone, I won't be gone 'till dawn

If I miss that train, I think I'm gonna to have to hitch-hike

If I miss that train in the mornin' y'all, I guess I'm gonna have to hitch-hike
And I'll let my little girl know, I'll just be gone, I'll be gone overnight

Overall Meaning

The song "Moon Is Full" by Johnny Copeland is a classic blues song that is all about love and longing. Copeland sings about how he feels when the moon is full, and how his love for a certain girl is so strong that he doesn't want to leave town. He talks about how his friends think he's crazy for feeling this way, but he knows that it's real. Throughout the song, Copeland's deep and soulful voice conveys his emotions perfectly, and the bluesy guitar and harmonica only add to the overall feeling of the song.

The first verse of the song sets the tone for the rest of the lyrics. Copeland sings about how he feels his love coming down when the moon is full. This is a metaphor for the strong emotions that he feels when he thinks about this girl. He then goes on to say that he met this girl and doesn't want to leave town. The second verse reveals that his friends think he's crazy for feeling this way, but Copeland knows how he feels inside. He loves this girl because of her pretty brown eyes, which shows that he is captivated by her physical beauty as well as her personality.

In the third verse, Copeland talks about how he's going to take the train in the morning to go back home. He wants to let his little girl know that he won't be gone until dawn. However, if he misses the train, he will have to hitchhike. This shows how important it is for him to be with this girl, and how he's willing to go to great lengths to be with her.

Line by Line Meaning

I said the moon is full, I feel my love comin' down
I feel an undeniable connection with my lover, as if the energy of the moon is propelling our love forward.

You see I met this little girl, I don't think I'm gonna want to, want to, leave this town
I have fallen deeply in love with this woman and I cannot imagine wanting to leave the place where we met.

All my friends call me crazy, you just don't know how I feel inside
My friends cannot understand the intensity of my feelings for this woman, but I am confident in my love for her.

You know I love this little girl, 'cause she's got the little pretty, pretty brown eyes
I am drawn to this woman not only because of her physical beauty, but also because of the depth I see in her eyes.

Gonna catch that train in the mornin' y'all, I think I'm gonna go back home
I plan to leave town in the morning, but I feel a sense of reluctance to be separated from my love.

And I know that my little girl know, oh that I won't be gone, I won't be gone 'till dawn
I reassure my lover that I will only be gone for a short time, and will return by dawn.

If I miss that train in the mornin' y'all, I guess I'm gonna have to hitch-hike
If I am unable to catch my train, I will resort to hitchhiking to ensure that I can return to my lover as soon as possible.

And I'll let my little girl know, I'll just be gone, I'll be gone overnight
I communicate to my lover that even if I am delayed in my return, I will not be gone for long.

Lyrics © ALLIGATOR RECRDS/EYEBALL MUSIC
Written by: COLLINS, GWENDOLYN LOUISE, GWENDOLYN LOUISE COLLINS

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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