Musician Ana Popovic welcomes an open mind

Ana Popovic grew up in a family that valued music. Her father played guitar and bass and hosted jam sessions at home. It wasn't unusual to hear the music of Robert Johnson, Elmore James or Stevie Ray Vaughan, although Popovic tended to gravitate to the slide guitar of Bonnie Raitt.

Sounds like a wonderful childhood. But Popovic's musical indoctrination took place in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Born in 1976, Popovic grew up as the country was being beset by internal strife. When it came time to choose between a career in design and a career in music, she had a difficult choice to make.

"I love Belgrade; it's my hometown," Popovic says in an interview before her appearance Sunday at Moondog's in Blawnox, noting that she still goes back several times a year.

But it was not the place to be for a musician in the late 1990s. Popovic went to the Netherlands to study music at the Utrecht Academy and decided to stay in that country to pursue a musical career.

It's not a decision she regrets. Popovic is one of the more intriguing musicians to emerge in recent years. Although she's marketed as a blues musician, that in no way describes her range. Her latest release, "Still Making History," branches off into rock, jazz and jazz fusion.

"I like to put it all on my records," she says. "It's tempting to just do one style. ... But it's more challenging to try to do different things.

And it's even harder to excel at different genres. But Popovic's range seems limitless -- she does a credible Ella Fitzgerald on "Doubt Everyone But Me." The title track sounds like a cut from a Santana record, and there's a reggae flavor to "Between Our Worlds."

But Popovic's versatility sometimes is criticized in Europe even as she is embraced in the United States.

"I'm really surprised by the open-mindedness of people here," she says. "They're much more open-minded than in Europe. A lot of people there are blues purists and don't accept it when you do different things."

Popovic's first break came when she earned a W.C. Handy Award nomination for best new artist in 2003. The awards are for blues artists. She lost to Robert Randolph, but that gave her album, "Hush!," credibility and exposure.

Coming to perform in America was often problematic. In a new song, "Hold On," she sings, "I saw mosques and monasteries/burning down in flames. ... It's me who takes the blame."

It seems Popovic still is irked about being singled out at airports just because she's from Belgrade.

"It's frustrating," she says. "You're trying to enter the country, you want to fulfill your booking duties ... and you're held up just because you were born in the wrong part of the world. But it does make you stronger as a person."
Perhaps customs officials will look more kindly on Popovic these days with the new addition to her family, Luuk, who is a little more than 2 months old. He's already on tour with her (as is Popovic's mother), and she would love to write a song for him, perhaps a ballad.

For now, however, Luuk remains an unspeakable marvel.
"I can't wait to see how he's going to affect my point of view," Popovic says. "Everything is different, and my boyfriend and I are as stunned and charmed as we can be by him."

Regis Behe can be reached at rbehe@tribweb.com or 412-320-7990.