If anyone in Salisbury understands the kind of pressure that new “American Idol” contestant Jeremiah “Jay” Copeland is under right now, it would be his uncle, Josh Copeland.
The 20th season of “American Idol” debuts at on ABC at 8 p.m. Sunday. And although Josh Copeland, 40, never competed on that show, he was a finalist on BET’s Gospel reality show “Sunday Best” in 2019.
While battling on “Sunday Best,” Josh said “I didn’t want to let the family down,” he explained, because the Copelands come from a rich family tree with musical roots. So the uncle shared some advice with his nephew that he hopes will calm his nerves as he grinds his way through “American Idol.”
“If you don’t do anything [on the show], you’ve already made us proud. We were proud of the day you were born. You’ve already mastered that,” the uncle said. “Don’t worry about making us proud.”
The season premiere of “Idol” is Sunday, but Jay’s first episode won’t air until at least after March 6, a spokesperson from the show told DelmarvaNow.com / The Daily Times.
Audience was ‘weeping’
Jay is a Salisbury native who graduated from Salisbury University with bachelor’s degrees in theater and music in 2020.
Destiny Price, who attended college with Jay, explained that “Jeremiah’s singing can literally give you chills. He has a very powerful voice, and I just know that he will win ‘American Idol.’ ”
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Josh said sometimes onions magically appear in the crowd when audiences hear his nephew sing.
“Every time he’s gotten on stage, he has gotten such a standing ovation,” his uncle said. “And not only that, but you will see certain people weeping because of the specialness inside of him.”
John Wesley Wright has been a vocal instructor to Jay since he was in middle school. Wright discovered Jay through his husband, Bruce Glover, who taught at Jay’s middle school.
Glover was impressed with Jay’s talent, but Wright initially dismissed the tween before even hearing him sing.
“My husband comes home and he keeps saying, ‘You’ve got to get this kid at this school, his name’s Jeremiah, and you got to hear him,’” explained Wright, an associate professor in SU’s music program.
“I have lots of people and lots of parents in my life who told me that they want me to hear their child. As a voice teacher, you hear that a lot. At first, I’ll kind of roll my eyes or ignore it.”
Things changed after he heard Jay sing Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” with coming out of his 11-year-old body.
“My heart froze. And I was like, ‘Oh, OK, I get what you mean now. He had that ‘IT’ factor, that piercing, melt-your-heart type of tone and presentation.”
Almost killed his voice
From there, Wright got Jay connected with the Maryland Summer Center for the Arts. By the time Jay was an upperclassmen at James M. Bennett High School, there was a brief gap in which he and Wright weren’t working together.
He explained that Jay was busy and so was he, trying to establish the vocal program at SU.
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One day during Bennett High’s annual “Rock & Roll Revival Show,” Wright showed up to support Jay.
“He was singing a version of ‘Summertime’ and the audience just went wild. They just ate it up,” he explained.
Yet Wright was on edge during the whole performance, because Jay had abandoned some of the vocal training he learned.
“I am sitting in the audience and I’m freezing and tensing up because in my mind, I’m thinking we obviously still see the charisma, we saw the talent,” he explained.
“But with the way he was approaching his voice at that time, he would not have been singing in the next couple of years. His voice would have just been gone.”
And Jay knew this, Wright explained. So Wright made it a priority to start working with his student again to preserve his voice.
Jay decided to enroll at SU at the last minute. Wright said he initially wanted to go away for college, like most kids, but he thinks the Salisbury native stayed local so he could help him whip his voice back into shape, because natural talent can only take a performer so far.
Wright told Jay he was going to have to work really hard if he wanted to thrive in the music program.
He also encouraged him to get two degrees in theater and music so that he’d learn the rudiments of music and the theory behind it. He also wanted him to know what goes on backstage, not just when he was performing.
“He worked like a dog,” Wright said. “There were times senior year where I thought he was gonna break. But he got those two degrees.”
Gets it from granddaddy
Jay was born into a family with singing uncles and aunties.
His uncle Josh said his father, George Copeland (Jay’s grandfather), is responsible for their family singing tradition. The senior Copeland is the bishop of United Faith Church of Deliverance in Salisbury.
Before Josh was born, the bishop had a singing group named Revered Copeland and the Singing Disciples.
“My dad wanted to be a singer. That’s all he wanted to do. He wasn’t trying to be a pastor, he just wanted to sing. But God had other plans and he called him to be a pastor,” Josh said.
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From there he moved his family to Salisbury. Around the age of 7, Josh was a member of The Singing Copelands, a group comprising Jay and his brother, who played the organ, along with their three sisters, including Christina Ryder, Jay’s mother.
His group sang at churches where their father would preach. They were like a gospel version of the Jackson 5, and Josh was the youngest member.
“I think I would’ve been the Michael [Jackson] of that bunch,” said Josh, who explained he also had an afro at the time like MJ.
“Today Jay would be the Michael of this generation.”
Josh said it takes hard work to become a finalist on a reality show, which he accomplished on BET’s “Sunday Best.” You also have to be different to stand out. Prior to the pandemic, he basically lived at airports and on the road, averaging close to 100 performances per year.
His father taught him strong work ethic over the years to develop his voice. His dad would make Josh run and sing at the same time.
“It’s hard,” he said. But there’s more where that came from.
“I had to fill a balloon with air. And then I would have to inhale that air back, and that’s the air I’d use to sing with, versus doing it with fresh air.”
Josh said he’s confident his nephew will do well on “Idol,” because he’s a machine.
“I see in him the grind that I have, that same passion that [when you sing] it has to be right,” he said. “We get that from my dad. My dad’s motto is it has to be right. Whatever you do, do it with all your mind, with all your heart and give it all you got.”
Josh, who acknowledged his nephew as a workhorse, said he told Jay there’s only one member of the Copeland family that he needs to impress during his competition on “American Idol.”
“It’s all about you doing you now. Make yourself proud.”
Andre Lamar is the features/lifestyle reporter. If you have an interesting story idea, email Andre Lamar at alamar@gannett.com
