Blues Night on Civic Plaza: Featuring Shemekia Copeland; The Pleasure Pilots; & Russ Green

Sponsored by the City of Albuquerque with additional support from the McCune Charitable Foundation

It's another great night of the blues with Blues Night on Civic Plaza 2025 and this year's headliner is the great Shemekia Copeland.  First, opening the evening at 6pm will be Chicago born and raised harmonica player, singer-songwriter and film producer Russ Green, a recent New Mexico transplant. Green realized his musical pursuits in his adult years when he was discharged from the U.S. Army and attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale to study film. Having listened to and been exposed to a wide range of music growing up in Chicago, he was looking for a way to re-create the “sound” of his idol, Jimi Hendrix, but he couldn’t afford to buy a guitar while in film school, so he picked up a harmonica that he had bought years earlier and started learning his craft! He moved to Seattle, where he spent “every waking moment concentrating on playing the harmonica,” sitting in and jamming seven nights a week in Blues clubs throughout the city. Upon a visit back to Chicago, he was introduced to Sugar Blue, one of the city’s living harmonica legends who was often referred to as the “Jimi Hendrix of the harmonica,” and the rest is history. Green returned to Chicago to pursue film production, all the while growing his music career, recording and touring with John Primer and Lurrie Bell, as well as producing. His CD for Big Llou Johnson (of B.B King’s Bluesville) on Sirius/XM satellite radio, won a Blues Music Award for Best New Artist and he was featured on the Chicago Blues Harmonica Project, which received rave reviews. Green has appeared at the Chicago Blues Festival, Gloucester Blues Festival, San Francisco Blues Festival and many others, and boasts “a voice like no other, songwriting that pushes the envelope of what is the norm and harmonica playing that goes beyond the boundaries with hints of Hendrix.” Following Russ Green will be one of New Mexico’s favorite blues stalwarts, The Pleasure Pilots at 7pm. A rockin’ rhythm and blues band specializing in soulful renditions of danceable blues tunes, The Pleasure Pilots perform songs from the greats, including Amos Milburn, T-Bone Walker, Albert King, Louis Jordan, and Johnny “Guitar Watson,” as well as their original compositions.  With an all-star cast of musicians, the “Pilots” have taken home New Mexico Music Awards and performed at major blues festivals in the region, including Silver City, Red River, Animas, and Trinidaddio. They also play at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta each year and can be heard every month at Tiny’s Lounge in Santa Fe. The Pleasure Pilots are Fred Spencer, guitar and vocals; David Phillips, keyboards and vocals; Terry Bluhm, bass and vocals; Melvin Crisp, drums and percussion; and Lee Taylor, tenor saxophone. Finally, Shemekia Copeland hits the stage at 8pm. Copeland ossesses one of the most instantly recognizable and deeply soulful roots music voices of our time. The multi-Grammy nominee is beloved and honored worldwide for the fearlessness, honesty and humor of her revelatory songs as well as for her engaging personality. The Chicago Tribune wrote, “Copeland is the greatest female blues vocalist working today. There’s no mistaking the majesty of her instrument, nor the ferocity of her delivery.” Born and raised in Harlem, Copeland first stepped on stage with her famous father, Texas Blues guitarist and singer, Johnny Copeland, at New York’s Cotton Club when she was eight years old and upon the release of her 1998 debut album, Turn The Heat Up, when she was only 18, she instantly became a blues and R&B force to be reckoned with, being praised (by The New York Times and others) for her talent, larger-than-life personality, dynamic, authoritative voice and true star power. Since her debut, she has earned eight Blues Music Awards and a host of Living Blues Awards as well as her numerous Grammy nominations and has performed at halls all over the world. She has appeared in films, on national television and NPR, and has been the subject of major feature stories in hundreds of magazines, newspapers and internet publications. Copeland has worked with Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Carlos Santana, Dr. John, and many others, and performed alongside B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Buddy Guy, Trombone Shorty and Gary Clark, Jr. for President and Mrs. Obama. Her 2024 release, Blame It On Eve, shows Copeland looking to “unplug from the weight of world,” and is “another exhilarating Shemekia Copeland showcase, as her rousing vocals bring the heat to an infectious array of muscular rockers, stomping blues, swampy soul, and heartbreaking ballads.” Thanks to the City of Albuquerque this concert is FREE.