LOS ANGELES, CA— MARCH 18, 2022 RECORDING ARTIST, BLUES SINGER, SHEMEKIA COPELAND FOR ALLIGATOR RECORDS. Photos by Victoria Smith Make Up by KATE KATS

Editor’s Note: The Tangled Up in Bluesfest featuring Shemekia Copeland, Ana Popovic and Tommy Castro & the Painkillers at Packard Music Hall has been postponed until April 26, 2024.

Shemekia Copeland sings about subjects that certainly could cause the blues, but they are topics the genre tends to avoid.

Copeland’s most recent album, “Done Come Too Far,” includes songs about school shootings (“Pink Turns to Red”), sexual assault of children (“The Dolls Are Sleeping”) and talking to her son and warning him how to behave in encounters with law enforcement (“The Talk”).

The album also includes a song called “Dumb It Down,” something no one would accuse Copeland of doing

Copeland will headline the Tangled Up in Bluesfest on Saturday at Packard Music Hall, and said she’s never faced any pressure from her record label (Alligator Records) to dumb it down or avoid subject matter viewed as divisive.

“We can’t be any more divided than we are right now, you know what I mean,” she said during a telephone interview. “I love my label. They let me do my thing. I also did a song called ‘I Fell in Love with a Honky,’ which is not at all politically correct, but it was funny and it was a good song.”

“Honky” is joined by songs like the uptempo zydeco-influenced “Fried Catfish and Bibles,” and Copeland said she tries to strike a balance on her albums and in her live shows.

“I feel like this particular record is my whole personality — the seriousness of what is going on in the world with the funniness of my personality. It’s just a little bit of everything. ‘The Talk’ is because I have a little boy. He’s the most important thing in the world to me. That song was a tough one to do,”

But she believes there’s common ground to be found on those serious topics, and she bristled at the phrase “gun control” being used in the context of “Pink Turns to Red.”

“Any intelligent person would listen to the music and know the song is not about gun control,” Copeland said.

“The problem in this world is that words like that are used. Someone hears that and loses their whole s–. They say gun control when it really should be, let’s get the guns away from crazy people so they stop killing our kids.

“For me it’s super simple. I don’t believe that anyone who has their righteous mind shouldn’t be allowed to have their guns, but I do believe they shouldn’t be in the hands of some people, and I don’t think anyone with common sense would disagree with that. Listening to the song. They spend so much time and money trying to pit us against each other over stupid topics that folks can’t see that. I can’t deal with all that. What I can say is my songs are designed to educate and bring people together, and how people choose to take that, that’s on them.”

Since its release, “Done Come Too Far” was named blues album of the year (and Copeland artist of the year) in DownBeat Critics Awards, and British music magazine MOJO named it the top blues album of the year. She won two Living Blues Awards (contemporary blues album of the year and female blues artist of the year) and picked up her 15th Blues Music Award.

It also earned Copeland her fifth Grammy nomination. She’s joked in concert that she is “The Susan Lucci of the Grammys,” but Copeland said it’s just a laugh line, not something that bothers her.

“I’ve never needed anyone’s award to feel validated in any way … For me, my validation is when people come out and say, Thank you, thank you for these songs, thank you for doing what you do. That’s my main goal in life — to do what I do — and I always say I’m in constant competition with myself and no one else. I’m not worried about nobody else. I’m just doing Shemekia, and I’m super proud of that.”

She’ll be joined on Saturday by Ana Popovic and Tommy Castro & the Painkillers for the show staged by “Tangled Up in Blues,” the radio show hosted by Cornel Bogdan that can be heard from 7 to 10 p.m. Sunday on WYFM-FM (Y103).

Popovic, who was born in Serbia, started playing guitar as a teenager, and has been touring as a solo artist with her backing band since 2000. Her latest album, “Power,” was inspired by her battle with breast cancer, and she has described its sound as, “A gumbo of rock, blues, gospel, soul, funk.”

Castro has been named entertainer of the year four times by the Blues Music Awards, and has played more than 6,000 gigs over the last 30 years. He led the house band for NBC’s “Comedy Showcase” for two seasons, toured with such blues legends as B.B. King and Buddy Guy, and performed on 40 music cruises.

Copeland’s son, who is almost 7 years old, not only is inspiring his mother’s music; he’s also influencing her tour schedule.

Tangled Up in Bluesfest is Copeland’s only show this weekend, and she pretty much confines her touring to weekends.

“I don’t go out on long trips,” she said. “I go out for a couple days at a time and come home. It’s important for me to be a present mother, so I don’t go out on tours. I stopped touring the second I had him. Now I go out a few days at a time at the most.”

She benefits as well.

“I love being out there and doing what I do, and I’m not wearing myself out, which I don’t want to do. My father died when he was 60, and my mother died last year at 70. I’d like to live a longer life, and I’m doing everything I can to not overwork myself and be out there too much and be away from my little guy, because he needs me.”

If you go …

WHAT: Tangled Up in Bluesfest with Shemekia Copeland, Ana Popovic and Tommy Castro & the Painkillers

WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Packard Music Hall, 703 Mahoning Ave NW, Warren

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $26.50 to $52.50 and are available at the Packard box office and through Ticketmaster.