Blue Belgrade

Ana Popovic, from the mean streets of the Serbian capital, plays a mean guitar, too. She appears at 8 Great Tuesdays.

PREVIEW by John Chacona Contributing writer John Chacona has joined the reviewing staff of the Jazz Institute of Chicago. His blog on music and culture, ‘let’s call this,’ is at www.johnchacona.com.

    The classic blues story begins with hard times in a hard place. Singer and guitarist Ana Popovic (pronounced POP-o-vitch) was a music conservatory student, hardly the up-from-trouble back story you might expect.

    But though she didn’t come up in the Jim Crow American South or on the rugged South Side of Chicago, the streets of Belgrade were plenty mean when Ana was a girl.

    And anyway, when you can play guitar with the authority that she brings to her replica 1960 Fender Stratocaster, background hardly matters.

    For better or worse, how one looks does matter these days, and here Popovic brings the goods. Tall and long-legged, she’s the ultimate dream band mate of every kid who ever spent hours in the basement polishing Led Zeppelin licks.

    You can bet that a lot of those kids and a whole lot more will be on Liberty Pier when Popovic plays the second of the series of free concerts known as 8 Great Tuesdays. She’s an inspired choice.

    On the evidence of her new CD, “Still Making History,” released three weeks ago (see accompanying story), Popovic’s musical center is located in the neighborhood of the rocking bar blues that has been Erie’s musical meat and potatoes for a couple of decades.

    She doesn’t have a big voice, but she knows what to do with it (though I wish she’d let more of her natural accent through). And her guitar playing is first-rate.

    It should be. Popovic’s father, Milutin, was a gigging musician in Belgrade during the years when the old Yugoslav federation was selfimmolating. His record collection was a ready source of inspiration for the bright, musically inclined Ana.

    She attended the Utrecht Academy in the Netherlands, but left after a year when she landed a record deal with a German label. She spent a few years on the European circuit (she’s on tour there at press time) before taking aim at the big prize: America.

    Despite her camera-ready persona and unusual beginnings, Popovic brings the goods to her quest. She has a W.C. Handy award nomination for best new artist and a raft of positive press.

    Still, the proof of any artist in her genre comes on stage, and if YouTube is any indication Popovic should have the audience by the throat. Erie may be in the throes of a midsummer heat wave, but it says here that the musical forecast for next Tuesday calls for record highs.

Ana Popovic, Eastave will perform Tuesday from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at the Pepsi Amphitheater in Liberty Park, 730 W. Bayfront Highway.

Free EMTA Shuttles run from the Intermodal Transportation Center, Blasco Library, and the new park-andride lots at the southeast corner of the Bayfront Parkway and Lincoln Avenue starting at 5 p.m. For More Information on Ana Popovic, visit the Web site www.anapopovic.com.

For More Information on 8 Great Tuesdays, visit the Web site www.porterie.org / 8_great_tuesdays.html.