With crucial contributions from her manager/producer/songwriter John Hahn, Copeland has crafted an album that speaks to the times. A third of the songs are originals co-written by Hahn and guitarist Oliver Wood (of folk-rock band The Wood Brothers), and instead of trudging through blues tropes, “Crossbone Beach,” “Cardboard Box” and the title track speak to, for and about working people who sweat their way through modern-day America’s injustices, traps and hypocrisies.

Even some of the covers keep that theme going, like Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee’s rabble-rousing “The Battle Is Over (But The War Goes On)” and, in a broader way, the early ZZ Top tune “Jesus Just Left Chicago” (featuring ZZ guitarist Billy Gibbons), with its talk of the Savior setting things right in New Orleans. Copeland shows she can still rip it up on a straight blues by tackling her father’s “Devil’s Hand” and Albert King’s “Wrapped Up In Love Again.” But she crosses into country-soul territory in both the black-humored original tune “Drivin’ Out Of Nashville,” about a struggling singer who resorts to extreme measures to combat sexual harassment, and the slow-burning cheater’s tale “I Feel A Sin Coming On,” which might have first caught Copeland’s attention via Solomon Burke‘s version, but began its life as a country song.

Copeland slinks into the singer-songwriter realm with her sultry transformation of Jesse Winchester‘s “Isn’t That So,” adding a dash of New Orleans locomotion. And when she gets spiritual toward the end of the album, she takes classic rock to church (Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Long As I Can See The Light” and the aforementioned ZZ Top song) before bringing it all back home by ending the sermon with a spare, smoky take on North Mississippi blues heroine Jessie Mae Hemphill’s “Lord, Help The Poor And Needy,” in which she circles back neatly to an earthy agitprop agenda.

But Copeland’s genre-melding fluidity would be for naught if she didn’t possess such a powerhouse voice. She brings a perfect balance of authority and understatement to each song, whether it hails from Music City or the Mississippi Hill Country. As long as she’s got that going for her, who cares how the results are labeled?

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Clark has participated in celebrations of contemporary black musical innovation, like Essence Fest, the BET Awards and Afropunk Festival, even as he’s made return appearances at Crossroads. And he not only employed a deliberately broad and with-it stylistic palette on his major-label debut, Blak And Blu — he also followed the official release with a mixtape version, featuring gifted Mississippi MC Big K.R.I.T., a project that finally landed Clark’s music on important hip-hop blogs.

Clark is known to be reticent in interviews, but that doesn’t indicate a lack of self-awareness so much as a basic disinclination to have to explain himself. He has, on occasion, indicated that he’s given a great deal of thought to what it means to play music whose pioneers were predominately poor, black and socially marginalized and whose present-day practitioners are, more often than not, white. He told one interviewer, “Well, for a black male, the sound of the blues is pre-Civil Rights. It’s oppression.” Even so, he didn’t want to abandon the tradition altogether, he said, because he regards boldly real-talking, pre-rock blues numbers like Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” as “the foundation to be able to say whatever the f*** you want.”

More and more, Clark is claiming that freedom himself. On The Story Of Sonny Boy Slim, he’s got a firm handle on the narratives he wants to unfurl, the roles he wants to embody and the sounds he wants to play up. The album title came from both the guitar-prodigy character he played in the 2007 film Honeydripper and a family nickname, but he makes primal concerns seem at once colossal, socially incisive and personal, so that it hardly matters where autobiography ends and invention begins.

Opener “The Healing” sets the tone. Propelled by an unhurried groove that sounds like a uniform hip-hop loop, the song casts music as a way to access that which is emotionally or culturally forbidden. Clark’s delivery sounds self-possessed, allowing ample room for expression but never coming unhinged. Now more than ever, that’s the kind of singer he is — cool and in control, able to shed his voice’s earthier timbre and slide into a dreamy falsetto at will. That makes for a striking contrast with his turbulent guitar attack; he can simultaneously sound suave or pensive and bend his instrument to his stormy, squalling will, a duality he puts to excellent use in “Grinder.”

That foreboding track captures the steeliness of a man locked in the life-and-death struggle to make the money he needs to survive. The R&B cut “Hold On” is just as streetwise, the tough cadences of Clark’s phrasing taking cues from hip-hop and the words depicting parents’ desperation to shield their children from systemic racism. His own infant son, Zion, can be heard murmuring over the intro. In one way or another, the theme of striving also surfaces in the avant-garde funk track “Stars,” a song about trying to live up to youthful promise that showcases the drowsy side of Clark’s falsetto, and the rolling gospel-folk number “Church,” a prayer for help in becoming the man a lover wants him to be. (The latter is one of several songs to which Clark’s sisters contribute soothing harmonies.)

Plenty more sonic experimentation and sophistication enlivens songs like “Wings” — with its psychedelic vocal effects and spiky guitar outbursts adrift over rigid, loop-like drum patterns — and the Quiet Storm-ish, keyboard-cushioned “Down To Ride.” And all this blues-bending expansion is no accident. After recording his previous album with big-name producers, Clark elected to produce himself this time, holing up in a hometown studio so that he could push his evolution forward on his own thrilling terms.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

The National Park Service, which oversees both series, distributed the latest concert schedules today. But for longtime attendees used to catching big names at the parks each summer, this year’s schedules might seem pretty anemic.

That’s because — as Steve Kiviat reported for Washington City Paper — the National Park Service has struggled to maintain the clout that both series once had. Until recently, Carter Barron and Fort Dupont enjoyed a reputation as summer hot spots for funk and R&B, booking legacy acts including Peabo Bryson, Cameo, The Ohio Players, B.T. Express, Deniece Williams, Midnight Star, Gil Scott-Heron, Zapp and Fort Dupont regular Roy Ayers, who even wrote a song about the park. (“Fort Dupont Park, Fort Dupont Park, the party to remember…”)

In its heyday, Fort Dupont’s biggest gigs could draw tens of thousands of concertgoers, according to a 2012 story in the Washington Post.

These days, that doesn’t seem as likely, with Fort Dupont cutting back on glitz and shortening its schedule. Carter Barron has done the same.

That doesn’t mean both parks have lost their picnic appeal, though. See both of their schedules below.

Carter Barron Amphitheatre
All shows are free. Gates open at 7 p.m., shows begin at 7:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Movies begin at dusk. 4850 Colorado Ave. NW.

July 17: Classic Soul Night with Mousey Thompson and the James Brown Experience, Skip Mahoney & The Casuals and William DeVaughn (presented by the Washington Post Going Out Guide)

July 24: Reggae Night with Monsoon & S.T.O.R.M. Reggae Band, Puma Ptah, Ras Biruk and Ras Band (presented by the Washington Post Going Out Guide)

Aug. 16: Joint Service Jazz with U.S. Army Blues, U.S. Navy Commodores and U.S. Airmen of Note

Aug. 21: 15th Annual DC Poetry Festival honoring Gil Scott-Heron. The music of Gil Scott-Heron, featuring Giacomo Gates. Hosted by Charlotte Fox with house band Steven B and Friends. Presented by Genesis Poets.

Aug. 22: To be announced

Aug. 28: Movie night with a showing of Rear Window (movie may change due to availability)

Aug. 29: Movie night with a showing of The Wiz (movie may change due to availability)

Sept. 5: 27th Annual DC Blues Festival with Sharrie Williams, James Armstrong, Full Power Blues, Mojo Priests and Jackson & Oziel. (Gates open at noon)

Fort Dupont Park
All shows are free. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. and shows begin at 7 p.m. 3600 F St. SE.

July 18: World Music Night with Clan Salsa DC, Eme and Heteru and DJ Lance Reynolds of WPFW’s House of Soul. Concert MC/host: WPFW’s Nancy Alonso.

July 25: Dance and Club Night with CeCe Peniston, DJ Jahsonic and special guest performances. Concert MC/host to be announced.

Aug. 1: Rhythm and Soul Music Night with Cherelle and DJ Lance Reynolds of WPFW’s House of Soul. Concert MC/host: Michel Wright of Majic 102.3.

Aug. 8: Jazz in the Park Night with Marc Cary, Steven B. and Friends, DJ Jahsonic and the Boys & Girls’ Club of DC Jazz Band featuring Tariq. Concert MC/host to be announced.

Photo by Lionjack used under a Creative Commons license.

He was born Riley B. King on a plantation in Itta Bena, Miss. He played on street corners before heading to Memphis, Tenn., where he stayed with his cousin, the great country bluesman Bukka White. His career took off thanks to radio; he got a spot on the radio show of Sonny Boy Williamson II, then landed his own slot on black-run WDIA in Memphis. He needed a handle. At first it was Beale Street Blues Boy. Then Blues Boy King. Finally B.B. King stuck.

You can’t mention names without talking about his guitar, Lucille. It was actually more than one. The story goes that the first was a $30 acoustic he was playing at a dance in Arkansas when two men got in a fight, kicked over a stove and started a fire. When King was safe outside, he realized he’d left the guitar inside. He ran back into the burning dance hall to save it. After he learned the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, he decided to name his guitar for her to remind himself never to get into a fight over a woman. And since then, every one of his trademark Gibson ES-355s has been named Lucille.

The sound he got out of her was what set him apart. Playing high up on the neck, he’d push a string as he picked it, bending the note to make it cry. He didn’t burn a lot of fast licks, but you could feel each note he played. Nobody sounded like B.B. King, though later on plenty of rockers tried. (Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green got closest.)

King scored an R&B hit in 1951 with “Three O’Clock Blues” and began the next stage of his life as a touring musician. According to his website, King and his band played 342 one-night stands in 1956. He performed more than 250 nights a year into his 80s, his distinctive guitar sound and smooth vocals filling just about every major venue in the U.S. and abroad. In 1991, he opened his own spot, B.B. King’s Blues Club in Memphis. Others followed, and King remained involved in how they were run.

He was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in ’87. He was so beloved that he received honorary degrees from the Berklee College of Music as well as Yale and Brown universities, among others.

In 1970, he scored a crossover hit with “The Thrill Is Gone.” It’s the tune everyone knows — classic B.B. King: Lucille’s piercing single notes punctuating each phrase.

The thrill is gone.
The thrill is gone away from me.
Although I’ll still live on,
But so lonely I’ll be.

That pretty well sums up how a lot of fans are feeling right now, now that B.B. King is finally gone.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

That was Kittrell’s nickname: Dr. Blues. He and his family ran the Logan Circle haunt New Vegas Lounge for 44 years. Kittrell bought the red brick space in 1971 and turned it into a neighborhood mainstay for drinks, blues music and good times. Onstage, Kittrell led The Out of Town Blues Band, a seven-piece ensemble that rocked presidential inaugurations and weddings.

In his old-fashioned, thick-framed glasses, Dr. Blues looked the part. But his office was a little nontraditional. As Eve Zibart wrote in a 1993 Washington Post article, the lounge of the ‘90s was “a smoky, guffawing, urban version of a plug-in porch party that [drew] patrons of all ages and colors.” The club underwent a sweeping renovation 10 years later, modernizing the space but never quite erasing its down-home feel.

New Vegas Lounge (WAMU/Rebecca Grushkin)

When Kittrell arrived in Washington in 1951, he worked as a stone setter at the National Cathedral. Then he moved into small business, opening Jet’s Delicatessen at 14th and Belmont streets NW in 1967. His son, Jeremy, says that his dad became a father figure to many local kids.

“A lot of people never had the opportunity to have a father, somebody that’s actually there for you when you need him,” Kittrell says in a phone call. He says his dad was the kind of person who encouraged “living life in the proper direction — getting your education, going to school, being a man of God. All of those things were the things that he stood by.”

Around the New Vegas Lounge, gentrification has transformed Logan Circle into one of the city’s priciest neighborhoods. But the nightspot has survived the change.

Jeremy Kittrell, who co-owns the club with his brothers Justin and Jason and their mother, Edith, says the venue will also live on without Dr. Blues. He says that between owning the building and eight other properties in the neighborhood, his family has no plans to move their business.

In fact, Jeremy says the family is in meetings with a company to consider expanding New Vegas Lounge, which would mean adding locations in Miami and Las Vegas.

Justin Kittrell, Jeremy’s brother, plays drums and sings for The Out of Town Blues Band. His story — of being a boy cleaning the club with his brothers, and finally sitting down to play at the drum kit — is a classic tale.

“My dad said, ‘You’re going to learn how to play one day. Just keep trying,’” Justin says.

Justin joined the house band after graduating from high school in 2002, and three years later he took a place as a singer — also under his father’s encouragement. Now he and Jeremy speak proudly of their dad, who died one day shy of his 85th birthday. Justin says there was nothing quite like sharing a stage with Dr. Blues.

“It was the most amazing thing in the world,” Justin says. “Because really, all my encouragement came from him. I never really wanted to be a musician. I always loved music, and I played. But seeing him out there, sing and dance, and being a musician at heart himself — he always encouraged me to do it.”