Johnny Copeland - Further On Up the Road aka Live in Australia (1990)

► Get the album at the usual place...

The Texas Bluesman in the bush

Johnny Copeland, known as The Texas Bluesman, actually lived in the Lone Star State less than half of his life. If his name is well known from blues aficionados, his life is probably less familiar to many of them. So here is a little reminder.

Born in Haynesville, in the north of Louisiana, in 1937, the son of sharecroppers who divorced six months after his birth, he then moved with his mother across the state line some 30 km north to Magnolia, Arkansas, where he grew up. The family relocated to Houston when he was 13, and he started to discover blues through musicians like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Lowell Fulson, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and above all T-Bone Walker who became his inspiring model.

In Houston, he soon met Joe "Guitar" Hughes who became his life-long friend and guitar "teacher". Both formed the band Dukes of Rhythm, which became quite popular locally. In 1958, Copeland started to record singles for small local labels during the next decade, also working as a tour sideman for R'n'B and Soul artists such as Otis Redding and Eddie Floyd.