Ruth Copeland (born c. 1946)[2] is an English former singer, based in the United States since the 1960s and known for her collaborations with George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic.
After her mother's sudden death and her father's remarriage, she left college to pursue a singing career, first in Blackpool and then in London, where she joined a band, Ed and the Intruders, in which Lee played keyboards.
[2] After being spotted singing by Edwin Starr, she met and developed a relationship with Motown songwriter and record producer Jeffrey Bowen; they later married.
The album featured contributions not only from Clinton, but from a range of other Parliament-Funkadelic musicians, including Bernie Worrell, Eddie Hazel, Tawl Ross, Billy Bass Nelson and Tiki Fulwood.
[3][5][6] A second album, I Am What I Am, was released in July 1971, again featuring a range of P-Funk musicians, including several, such as Hazel and Nelson, who had recently left Funkadelic due to financial concerns.
These former Funkadelic musicians remained with Copeland as her backing band when she toured to promote her album, and regularly supported Sly and the Family Stone.
[5] She remarried in the late 1970s, and started a new career as a production executive at a publishing firm, The Blue Book Network of Commercial Construction.