Ms. Popovic is not afraid of taking chances. It is this willingness to explore and move beyond accepted boundaries that is a trait of many of music's greatest artists.

Experiencing Ana Popovic live is a thrill. She grabs the audience and takes them for a musical ride down roads less traveled. Should you get the opportunity to attend one of her concerts, fasten your seatbelt and open your ears and your mind. You may find that your final destination is an appreciation of a different kind of Blues artist - Ana Popovic.

Barrelhouse Blues ("BB") recently had the opportunity to speak with Ms. Popovic after her performance at the North River Blues Festival in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Ana is every bit as enthusiastic discussing her music and her career as she is about performing live. It was a pleasure sharing the time with her. We hope you enjoy this insightful interview as well. Read on...

BB: Tell us about your background, your influences and how you got started playing the guitar.

AP: Yeah, I listened to Blues before I remember music. There was nothing else in my house, and my father has a large collection of records. You know and I heard no European stuff, just American roots music. American black music. I grew up listening to Elmore James, Bukka White and Howlin’ Wolf. And later on, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King and Albert Collins. Robert Cray and these guys and I loved it. It was a very danceable thing. I was singing the songs way before I could even understand what these people were singing about. And when I heard Elmore James, I couldn’t help but take the slide in my hands. Dust My Broom was one of the first slide solos that I learned, and Done Somebody Wrong and stuff like that. I learned it just by listening to records. That’s why I play standard tuning. I don’t play open, I mean nobody really knew how to play slide in Yugoslavia. And I started to playing with Albert King. Those were my first solos. And later Stevie Ray Vaughan. And later on, Ronnie Earl really turned me on to jazz. And because it sounded so jazzy to me, and I loved this moment when you are too jazzy for a Blues player and too bluesy for a jazz player. And I loved that, and that is what I wanted to be. And then I studied jazz for sometime to be able to have my own licks instead of copying T-Bone Walker or Ronnie Earl or whatever. The guys who are into jazz a little bit as well. Then I came across John Scofield, Kevin Eubanks and guys who art totally into jazz and fusion and exploring the sounds. But, I definitely grew up on Blues music. Collins and Cray and Copeland...these guys.

BB: It’s nice that you take influences other than Blues, which is what you started with, and combine them and advance the genre. We believe that it’s important to honor the tradition, but equally important to advance the art to keep it vital and fresh. So it’s a great thing when an artist like yourself, pushes the boundaries and moves the art forward.

AP: Thank you. I also think it’s a good thing, although I think keeping the tradition is also very important. In Europe, you also have a lot of people that play very traditionally, although on the edge with rockabilly style and T-Bone Walker type stuff – which is also very good. But in Europe, you often miss a lot of freedom to explore your own stuff. A lot of people just want to play T-Bone Walker. They want to be Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimmie Vaughan. They pick one artist and go for it. But I think you should be very free to explore your blue notes even in the songs of Steely Dan or pop music. Even in fusion music you can hear Blues. I mean, John Scofield made a Blues album. And I think that also with sound, you can advance Blues music just by being a little bit free and exploring with sound like jazz people do. And I’m always on the edge. About to cross the edge, but I never do because Blues is my biggest influence. And I don’t want to be a jazz player, and I never will be.

BB: How much time have you invested in the guitar? We’ve heard you’ve only been playing about 10 years and you have phenomenal technique. Do you have a natural ability or did you spend a lot of time with it?

AP: I spent a lot of time when I started. Really, now less, because I’m on the road. But I’m playing anyway every evening. But really studying, I spend a lot of time. I mean, I was literally having my program and I was really so focused on finding my own sound and style, that I had exactly the program. I thought Ronnie Earl, John Scofield, Stevie Ray Vaughan is a perfect combination. Why? I thought Ronnie Earl is really bluesy. He’s a bit jazz and blues, right? Something T-Bone Walker was doing. And John Scofield has this freedom of exploring notes. And Stevie had this groove, this incredible groove – it just goes on and on and gets the band going. So I had this little problem. I would switch, I would play Albert King for a long time and the moment I would catch myself playing too many licks of Albert King, I would switch the record – even if I didn’t want to. You know you get to a mood where you practice and practice and you start sounding like somebody and you go, wow, that is incredible. I even sound like him and even have the same tone. And you don’t want to switch the record, but I did it on purpose because I don’t want to sound like anybody else. And it took me a long time, but I’m really enjoying my own licks. Because it’s really difficult to come up with something new and different. And what makes me different from a lot of Blues players is maybe phrasing. Because I listen to a lot of jazz saxophone players and I listen to a lot of George Benson, which really helped develop different phrasing. I still play the same notes as other Blues players, but if you get a little bit out of the back beat and everything, you get something else. (Laughs) A little bit of Ana Popovic, I guess.

BB: How would you compare American audiences to European audiences?

AP: I love American audiences. It’s a big challenge for me and I love coming here. And everything I do in life is because of a challenge. Because people say it’s impossible for a Yugoslavian guitar player to come outside of Yugoslavia and play Blues for Dutch people. Or play Blues for French people. And there’s no way you can come across the Atlantic Ocean and play Blues for American people. And I’m just thinking, that is exactly what I want to try. And I’m not afraid of failure. And I want to be compared. And I want to come here and learn. I played a couple of times in American bands and I recorded my records here just because I can learn from the people I work with. That’s exactly what keeps me going and America is definitely the top challenge I have. I don’t have a wish to go to Japan and play my music. I don’t wish to go to Africa and play my music. I really love the Blues because this is the music I grew up with. And I can hear it at every festival. And I think the audience is really nice and they really are not afraid of the new things in Blues. Like they really know where I come from, and if I have a line of Elmore James, they will recognize it right away. But they’re really open for new things. Like I play a Steely Dan song, I play some Jimi Hendrix, I play some little jazzy things and they are really open to that. While in Europe, they are like, “is this Blues or is it jazz?” Would they be offended if I play a Steely Dan song in my set? It’s all Bluesy and it’s all Blue notes. And I love exploring and really going to the edge. Like, really go the edge with my ideas and everything – and then being marked, you know, graded for what I do – is it good, is it bad, or whatever. The next time it will be better or whatever, and that’s what I like about American audiences. Plus they always understand what I’m singing about. Which is not always the case in France (laughs) and some other countries. A lot of people don’t speak English. So it’s good to be here – they know what you’re talking about and it’s good.

BB: Tell us about your new CD.

AP: We just got a live DVD and a CD from Amsterdam and it’s one of the best shows we ever did. And the chances of that happening in one night is very small. We wanted to do what we’ve been doing on stage for a long time, capture it, and we wanted to get the best crew, that is reserved only for main stream acts. We got the best crew in Holland. They do the North Sea Jazz Festival and other big pop events. They are very expensive for Blues musicians and Blues labels. Nobody does that. But we really wanted to have them. And we didn’t have a budget for a couple of days. We just had to have them for literally five hours. And the organization in five hours was incredible and everything happened “right.” The sound is good, the lights were good and the band felt great. The solos were without a mistake, the singing is great and I don’t have to do any overdubs. And the whole crew just did great shots with the video. It’s so small, the chances were so small and I’m so overwhelmed. Because there is nothing better than capturing a period of your life and your career in the best possible way. So we all long for that. We all have the best gigs in a small box. Because we are loose, and when you go to the big stage it is a bit tricky and stuff. So I am very happy we actually got through one of the best things we ever did. And it’s again a mixture of styles. I got some Blues. Howlin’ Wolf, some roots music, some Steely Dan. And I’ve got some rock music and I’ve got some jazzy stuff. It’s a very good live CD and DVD. We’ve got three new songs, never released before. We’ve got an acoustic session on the bridge in Amsterdam with a song of Elmore James, “Done Somebody Wrong.” We’ve got a lot of nice extras. We’ve got a nice interview about life and about the political situation in Yugoslavia. Just a lot of things. And I think it’s a very nice DVD.

BB: Tell us about some of your most memorable experiences on stage. What sticks out in your mind as to exciting performances or people you’ve performed with?

AP: Just yesterday! (Laughs), Yesterday and a week ago! Yeah, there were great festivals, like the festival in Wheeling, West Virginia, and Loudonville, Ohio yesterday. It was about two and a half hours of signing CDs. And Rockland, Maine two years ago. They were very nice festivals. There were really long lines for signing CD’s and the people were going really nuts! And that is incredible, to do these things in America.

But I love playing with American people, playing with Kenny Neal, I love jamming with Walter, I love jamming with Eric Sardinas and Solomon Burke. I had a chance to play concerts with Solomon Burke and that was just an incredible experience – just incredible. Yeah, maybe the best. I don’t know. Just jamming and being able to stand next to somebody you really admire for years onstage and then come up with something to like surprise them. Come up with a lick – you have to always think what are their licks - and then come up with something that is totally not their licks. That’s how I do it. And I think it works.

BB: Who would you like to perform with that you haven’t performed with thus far?

AP: Sonny Landreth. He’s my big hero for slide. I love that guy. He’s great. He’s amazing. He’s very free and exploring sounds and styles. Umm, a lot. Just a lot of guys. B.B. King. Eric Clapton. You name it.

BB: That’d be great, huh?

AP: Oh, yeah. Kenny Neal. He’s right here. It’s going to happen. Tonight. (Laughs.) I love his playing and his singing and his sound. It’s just incredible.

BB: What’s next for you after this tour? Do you have plans for another CD?

AP: Yeah. I have songs that are ready completely to go to a studio. So I am looking for a label because I have three records with Ruf Records and that is now done. So I’m looking for a new label and talking to some people. So, that’s the next thing. We have to go to the studio toward the end of the year and record these songs, and I’m very proud of them. There are a couple of political songs, about time in Yugoslavia under Milosevic. There’s some love songs. There’s songs about time and about just life. I enjoy everyday life. I’m not a musician 100%. I enjoy being on the road, but I just enjoy everyday life – what normal people have. And I think that a lot of musicians lose it with being on the road. And I don’t want that to happen to me. So I really, really enjoy just being back home. And I want to have both things. Both sides of the medal. So I’m writing about these things. Just everyday stuff.

BB: Songs you mean?

AP: Yes. I write songs. There are some things about what happened in Yugoslavia, and after I left and also before. And it just took me time to get over the whole thing and start writing about it. And I still think there’s a lot of people that don’t have really a chance. Just because they are born in a system that doesn’t allow you to do much with your life. And the years pass by and it is not your fault. And a lot of people are not strong, like I think I am, to just go out and start from zero and do something. And I feel sorry for these people and it’s not their fault. So I love these kind of stories. But also stories about musicians. Like I have on the last record a story about Jaco Pastorius, which is the same as a story about Jimi Hendrix. They were just extreme talents that couldn’t control their lives. So, they’re very sad stories, very sad life stories although they were geniuses in art, in art forms. And that really attracts me. I love reading books about their lives and I love everything that I am not - what they are. You know? In a way that I can have my privacy. I have my life in order and there is nothing that I do bad.

BB: Are you surprised that after only 10 years, you’re out touring the world? It’s quite an accomplishment.

AP: I love it. I started in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and when I wanted to move, they all thought I was crazy. Because I had a lot of work, I right away hit the top charts with a Blues record - which was incredible. Nobody ever hit the top charts with an English record. I mean, it just didn’t happen in Yugoslavia. You have to sing in your own language. And we were the first English singing band. I never sang in my own language. And I really wanted to try something else. I can’t really be stuck in the same place. A lot of people do that in Europe and earn a lot of money with that. You know, just tour Germany for twenty years. Same places. Over and over again. But outside Germany, nobody knows their names. It’s really not what attracts me. At all. Just that you can wake up on one side of the ocean instead of the other and people scream some of your songs – like the names of your songs, or some lyrics. I think that’s beautiful. And I’m very happy of course, and there are a lot of things I would still like to accomplish of course, and I really always want more, for some reason, but I am also happy with what I have.

BB: What are some of the things you would like to accomplish?

AP: Well I always want to bring my music to a better level, and I love bigger stages and I love good sound and good lighting, and I like an audience that really knows what I’m doing. And that means a major record deal. But I don’t want to change because of a major record deal because I don’t want to make too many compromises. I don’t want to be a Britney Spears or somebody who gets songs in her hand when she wants to sing. I want to do my own songs. I want to sing my own music. And I think there is still a lot of beautiful things totally away from MTV and totally away from big things that are still very nice. And sort of a jazz, blues scene where you don’t have to be worried if your video is on MTV or not. Where you can just play very nice stages. Beautiful stages with jazzy stuff, bluesy stuff, some intellectual music which I think pop music doesn’t have. Pop music is just rush, rush with the hits and people who write songs for you and tell you what to do and how to look and everything. That is not my goal. But somewhere in between what I do now and that circuit of pop is maybe where I want to be.

BB: What would you most like your fans to know about you and your music?

AP: Well, I want them to explore it with me. I want them to know that I have no idea how my next stuff is going to look like. I mean I have the songs, but the way it’s going to sound, I don’t know. Because I love the moment of making it. I just love the energy that some people have when they're twenty-five, twenty-nine, or eighteen. I think that songs that I recorded when I was twenty, I think if I played them now, it won’t sound like anything. I mean there are just some songs that sound right in that particular moment when you are not such a good guitar player and you don’t have the scales, and you don’t have anything that you have now. So, I think, that just exploring the moment, and maybe this moment I’m not the guitar player that I’m going to be in five years. But I think it’s beautiful the energy I have with my band. That we just create on the spot. And maybe the songs we have now, maybe I’ll be a much better songwriter in five years. But I just want the audience to enjoy the moment where we are now. Because Sting didn’t write songs like he does now when he was eighteen, like Message in a Bottle, and these things. Maybe now he’s a way better songwriter and musician and has much more money to explore with studio jazz musicians and everything. But that specific energy that they had at that time as the Police can never be replaced. What Hendrix had on stage at that time is just full of young, young energy. People who are full of young energy when they express themselves. I think that is so beautiful. And you can study later on. But I’m so happy I was able to capture certain moments of my life. I had a record in Yugoslavia, singing in a weird accent of English, and then I had a record later on. I have a great DVD at the moment. And these are all just different parts of me.

BB: Your performance today was great. I know you had some reservations about how it sounded from the stage, but out in the audience it was really great and the people seemed to connect with what you were doing and appreciate it. And we think that’s so cool because it’s a Blues Festival but you really push those boundaries and mix in a lot of other things. And the fact that they could connect with that and appreciate what you were doing is a real compliment to you and your music.

AP: Thank you. I really think that is incredible. And I really love it every evening because tonight we had a very difficult sound, so I didn’t really feel it that way. But like yesterday, or all the rest of the tour, this is just incredible because the audience, I mean I’m playing these songs now already like three years. Sort of more or less the same material, and now we really got like a movement. Like the right song set. Because it’s not easy to connect all these different styles in one set. And I always had in mind, I just don’t want my audience to be bored for a second. I have to keep their attention for that set, the whole set. And the only way you can do that is to mix styles. And play every style with a respect to that style. That means that you have to rock in one song and forget the scales. And if you play a jazzy song, which I didn’t tonight because of the sound, you have to really get into this George Benson clean sound. And it’s very difficult to switch in one set. Because you have one energy going and then to really switch and play a shuffle, and play Blues with respect to the style, and then you switch and you play rock. And you play Rolling Stone licks, and then you play jazzy style, and it’s very difficult. And to see the audience’s response to this whole wave of different things is just incredible. I love it. When the good concert happens, like on my DVD, it’s a miracle. It’s great. It’s really nice, because somewhere, it’s all my idea. A lot of people at the beginning really didn’t like what I was doing. A lot of producers were like freaking out, with the idea of like putting a Steely Dan song on a Blues record. Because it’s really unusual for a Blues record, but I really hear Blues in that song, Night By Night, it’s very bluesy to me. I hear Blue notes in a lot of music and I really want to bring that out. So now it’s kind of polished and they just really dig this. And of course, the whole thing about playing America is another dimension because people here know their own music. They grew up with it. So it’s a little bit more difficult I guess. And to see them digging this whole thing is great.

BB: Touring as you do, and being in different venues every night, and dealing with different sound systems and different audiences, and just being on the road, and yet you come across with the energy and enthusiasm as you do. How do you manage to keep that enthusiasm up after years of touring and performing?

AP: Well, I need my off days. I cherish my off days. I could never go on a four month tour because I think it’s not right. I mean you shouldn’t empty your energy because you simply don’t have it for on and on. And I think a lot of musicians I see on stage really learn how to rest during the set, which I don’t have. And my father was always telling me, look at the concert, they rest. They have long solos. They have long slow Blues songs, they take their time, But I really think the attention of the audience is gone. And I really don’t want that. So if I give 150% like I do at my concerts everyday, it’s impossible for me. So I really cherish my off days. Like I told you, I really think that a lot of musicians miss beautiful everyday life. Which you have with your friends and your family and your relationship. Which is very important to me. And I don’t want to be a frustrated musician on the road. I want to have both. So that’s what I do. And a one month tour is long for me. But America, I really enjoy it. Tonight was a difficult concert. Very difficult. As I said, very difficult sound on stage. So then I lose a lot of energy. But it was not a long set. But I just had a marvelous tour, and it keeps me going from one night to another. But I know that after this tour is gone, I need some off days. I take my vacations very seriously. When I have a vacation, I go to a tropical island. (Laughs.) And that gives me so much energy because after a week I am dying to get back on stage. And I think that is the only true way to be for my audience that comes to see me. And that particular concert, they come to see me, I have to be 150%. That’s what I think and they deserve that.

BB: Music is a gift that the performer has within themselves, but also something that they share with the audience. How important is it to you, having this gift and sharing it with your audiences?

AP: There is no greater thing than that. If the concert is good and there is energy with my band and the audience, there is nothing that beats that feeling. Nothing. It’s very important to me. I think there a lot of people who work that are not happy with what they do. And I think everyone who has a little tiny happiness in what they do have already achieved a lot. There is a lot of jobs out there from computers, you know, twenty dollars or something, I don’t know, banks, post office or whatever. There are a lot of people that are not happy and not strong enough to change that. But this? This really completes me, very much. I can’t imagine anything else I could do. But I really want my music on a very nice level and if I don’t see it progress, I might even stop one day. Because I just couldn’t bear it going down. I mean, I couldn’t bear going back to the places I played ten years ago. So in that manner I am really trying to keep my stages up and places I play up. Because I think to lose what I have now would be a disaster. I love it. I love what I do and I love my band. And yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.

BB: Do you have anything else you’d like to share before we end the interview? Anything you’d like your fans to know about yourself or your career?

AP: Well, I have this long dream about going on a Blues cruise with all the American bands. And now it’s actually going to happen. So that’s a beautiful thing. And I’m going to bring my dad to the Blues cruise because it’s going to be the time of his life - the famous Blues cruise starting in Fort Lauderdale and going to Jamaica with Taj Mahal and everybody. So I really enjoy that. And I’m really happy about my songs. They’re completely new. They’re something different. They’re very modern and I’m thinking of doing two different things. I’m going to do a Blues album something maybe even dedicated to Johnny Winter which is my big influence in slide playing and I simply love that guy. He’s the main reason I play too many notes. He is the one to blame. I heard him and I could never get off that thing. And I want to do this little produced thing and I have really nice songs that are very very true, about my ideas and about life at this moment and I think those are the best I ever did. So I want to record them and I hope it will be soon. I’m talking to some record labels and everything. I want to do two different things. I’m looking for something else. And that’s it. There is nothing more to add. I’m looking forward to playing more in America.

BB: We’re looking forward to hearing more of you.

AP: Thank you so much.