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.

Tumblin' Dice
Johnny Copeland Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Wo Yeah! (Wo, wo)

Women think I'm tasty, but they're always tryin' to waste me
And make me burn the candle right down,
But baby, baby, I don't need no jewels in my crown.

'Cause all you women is low down gamblers,
Cheatin' like I don't know how,

But baby, baby, there's fever in the funk house now.
This low down bitchin' got my poor feet a itchin',
Don't you know you know the duece is still wild.

Baby, I can't stay, you got to roll me
And call me the tumblin' dice.

Always in a hurry, I never stop to worry,
Don't you see the time flashin' by.
Honey, got no money,
I'm all sixes and sevens and nines.
Say now baby, I'm the rank outsider,
You can be my partner in crime.

But baby, I can't stay,
You got to roll me and call me the tumblin',
Roll me and call me the tumblin' dice.

Oh, my, my, my, I'm the lone crap shooter,
Playin' the field ev'ry night.

But baby, I can't stay,
You got to roll me and call me the tumblin' dice, (Call me the
tumblin')
Got to roll me (yayes), Got to roll me, Got to roll me (Oh yeah)
Got to roll me
Got to roll me (yeah)
Got to roll me (Keep on rolling)
Got to roll me (Keep on rolling)
Got to roll me (Keep on rolling)
Got to roll me
My baby, call me the tumblin' dice, yeah
Got to roll me
Baby sweet as sugar (Got to roll me)
Yeah, my, my, my yeah (Got to roll me)
I went down baby, oh

Got to roll me (hit me)
Baby I'm down

Overall Meaning

In "Tumblin' Dice," Johnny Copeland sings about being a lone gambler who is always on the move. Women are drawn to him, but he is aware that they are trying to take advantage of him. He does not need their superficial adornments because he knows that they are not worth it. Copeland characterizes women as low-down gamblers who are constantly cheating on him. Despite this, he finds the fever of the funk house appealing. The gambling metaphor continues, as he compares his life to a game of craps. He plays the field every night as a lone crap shooter.

The song's protagonist is aware of his outsider status, and he invites a partner in crime. However, he is aware that he cannot stay in one place for too long, and they must roll him and call him the tumbling dice. He lives life in a hurry and does not let worries take control of him. Even though he is broke, he rolls with the punches and takes his chances. In essence, the lyrics to "Tumblin' Dice" paint a picture of a man who is always on the move, living life on his own terms, and never letting anything or anyone hold him back.

Line by Line Meaning

Women think I'm tasty, but they're always tryin' to waste me
Women are attracted to me but they're always trying to ruin me somehow

And make me burn the candle right down,
They try to use me up till I'm exhausted

But baby, baby, I don't need no jewels in my crown.
I don't need any fancy things to be happy; I'm content with what I have

'Cause all you women is low down gamblers,
All you women are dishonest and always playing games

Cheatin' like I don't know how,
You cheat so much it's like second nature to you

But baby, baby, there's fever in the funk house now.
But now there's excitement and energy in the air

This low down bitchin' got my poor feet a itchin',
All this complaining is making me feel restless

Don't you know you know the duece is still wild.
You should know that the situation is still unpredictable

Baby, I can't stay, you got to roll me
I can't stick around, you need to keep things moving

And call me the tumblin' dice.
And refer to me as the unpredictable factor

Always in a hurry, I never stop to worry,
I'm always rushing around, never taking time to fret