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.
Somethin' You Got
Johnny Copeland Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Makes me work all day
Something you got, baby
Makes me bring home my pay
Something you got, baby
You ought to know
My my, whoa whoa
I love you so
Something you got, baby
Makes the world go 'round
Something you got, baby
Keep me home every night
Something you got, baby
You ought to know
You ought to know
Whoa, whoa, my, my
Whoa I love you so
Something you got
Makes me work all day
Something you got
Makes me bring home my pay
Something you got
You ought to know
My my, whoa whoa
I love you so
In Johnny Copeland’s song “Something You Got”, the singer expresses how he is constantly motivated and working hard for his lover. The repetition of the phrase “Something you got, baby” emphasizes how the singer is not quite sure what it is that their partner possesses that makes him feel this way. However, the sheer power of this mysterious force is enough to keep him steadfastly devoted, committed, and hardworking. He implies that this intangible force is the basis for all his love and affection towards his partner.
The singer follows his initial statement that “Something you got, baby makes me work all day” with several more lines that praise his partner's influence over his life. The second verse, for instance that says “Something you got, baby makes the world go 'round” implies that his partner has an undeniable impact on his world. This further reinforces how the singer is enamored with this unknown force that his partner possesses. He is so captivated by it that he is willing to express his love all over again in the last verse.
Overall, the song suggests that the emotional and psychological magnetism of our beloveds can have an overwhelming effect on us that is almost impossible to quantify. The song conveys the importance of such magnetic, mysterious attraction and how it can be the cornerstone of relationships.
Line by Line Meaning
Something you got, baby
There's something about you that's special
Makes me work all day
You make me strive to work hard and provide for us
Makes me bring home my pay
Your love gives me a sense of purpose and motivates me to earn money for us
You ought to know
I want you to understand how much you mean to me
My my, whoa whoa
Expressing my appreciation and love for you
I love you so
I have deep affection for you
Makes the world go 'round
Your love is what keeps everything in order and moving forward
Keep me home every night
I don't need anything else but you, I enjoy staying home with you
You ought to know
I need you to understand how much you complete me
Whoa, whoa, my, my
Amazement and admiration for you
Whoa I love you so
I can't express how much I love you enough
Something you got
You are special and unique in ways I can't explain
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: CHRIS KENNER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@alvinbanteah6743
I love this bunch all stars I wake in the morning and play harmonica!
@johnrowland3105
Love this track. Much underrated is Mr.Cray
@nicholasgordon5013
Unique blues player...one of the best that ever was.....
@MrDjuros
bravo majstoreeee!!!!!!!!!!
@davidmartin7081
Amazing! Roberts voice is just WOW! Then the Iceman blasts the place with a blizzard of icy notes!
Man , I wish I'd gotten to meet Albert. He was quite a guy I hear.!
@tellthetruthg
Big question is ever known A woman like that
@kennygilbert5240
A woman like that would be outta my league, think I'll just go to the local brothel and get half an hours worth in 3seconds hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha