{"id":12348,"date":"2017-02-28T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T10:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=12348"},"modified":"2017-02-20T15:52:45","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T20:52:45","slug":"ana-popovic-modern-artist-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/02\/28\/ana-popovic-modern-artist-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ana Popovi\u0107: Modern Artist (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part 1…<\/em><\/p>\n

That modern approach made itself manifest from Popovi\u0107’s first American release, 2002’s Hush!<\/em> Taking full advantage of her interest in \u2013 and skill at delivering \u2013 a wide array of styles, Hush!<\/em> is most definitely not an album designed to pander to blues purists. The disc has a dozen tunes, three of which are composed solely by Popovi\u0107; three others are co-writes. Those, along with a sampling of blues standards (including Buddy Guy<\/strong>‘s \u201cGirl of Many Words\u201d) collectively set the tone for Popovi\u0107’s signature approach: a style that is rooted in the blues, informed by the blues, but open to other influences.<\/p>\n

By the following year, Popovi\u0107 had released a follow-up, Comfort to the Soul<\/em>. That set continues to have it several ways: traditional blues like an uptempo reading of the standard \u201cSitting on Top of the World\u201d sits comfortably next to a cover of a Steely Dan<\/strong> deep album cut (Pretzel Logic’s \u201cNight by Night\u201d) and a\u00a0 Popovi\u0107-penned tribute to jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Popovi\u0107 ‘s 2011 release, Unconditional<\/em>, courted a bit of controversy. On its cover, an apparently nude Popovi\u0107 stares straight into the camera lens, her \u201cnaughty bits\u201d obscured only by the guitarist’s signature Fender Stratocaster and a bit of strategically-placed shadow. Once listeners got past the racy packaging, they would find another solid collection of music, highlighted by a strong reading of Nat Adderley’s soul-jazz classic, \u201cWork Song.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in 2015, Popovi\u0107 released Blue Room<\/em>, the first released musical collaboration between the guitarist and her single biggest musical influence: her father. Blue Room<\/em> displays more of an Eastern European flavor than one finds on Popovi\u0107’s other releases, but it’s still very much rooted in traditional (and electric) blues.<\/p>\n

To date, Ana Popovi\u0107\u00a0 has released eight studio albums, a pair of live sets and two DVDs; each continues to explore the guitarist-singer’s varied musical interests, from the blues to soul to funk to rock, and eventually back to the blues once again. Noting that she has studied both jazz and world music, Popovi\u0107 insists that \u201cI give myself absolute freedom to make music that comes straight from the heart. And the last think I want is to put a label on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labels or not, the latest Ana Popovi\u0107 release is yet another varied offering. Released last May, the 3CD set Trilogy<\/em> presents the guitarist-vocalist in three distinctly different styles. The individual discs are subtitled \u201cMorning,\u201d \u201cMid-day\u201d and \u201cMidnight\u201d and each has its own musical character. \u201c is the most diverse record I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d says Popovi?. \u201cIt\u2019s all me, obviously, but it represents a different take on blues.\u201d The album features guest spots from Joe Bonamassa, North Mississippi Allstars’ Cody Dickinson<\/strong>, famed drummer Bernard Purdie<\/strong> and rapper Al Capone<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Trilogy<\/em> project was carefully thought out. \u201cI don\u2019t make my moves overnight,\u201d says Popovi\u0107. \u201cI put a lot of time into the concepts. It took me about three years to get the concept together.\u201d Building on her previous studio experience, Popovi\u0107 applied all of that knowledge to the creation of Trilogy<\/em>. \u201cNowadays when you go into the studio, you need to have 90% done in order to have a successful record. There is no more, ‘Okay, let\u2019s just get into the studio and jam and see what happens.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Four different studios \u2013 and several different sets of support musicians \u2013 were used to make the album. \u201cI wanted specific sounds,\u201d Popovi\u0107 says. \u201cI wanted exactly the horn section that\u2019s going to be more soulful in Memphis for soul tracks, more funky in New Orleans for the funk tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popovi\u0107 wasn’t intimidated by the risk inherent in releasing a 3CD set into a marketplace increasingly dominated by single-track downloads. \u201cI thought this was maybe the moment, because everyone is saying constantly, ‘There\u2019s no CD sales; let\u2019s just put out a five-song EP.’ I said, ‘I\u2019m going to prove different.’ If the product is good, people are going to buy it even if it\u2019s twice the price of the regular CD.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The guitarist admits that she wasn’t completely convinced Trilogy<\/em> would come out the way she wanted. \u201cI\u2019m making the records for myself, because I\u2019m my biggest critic. I know exactly what\u2019s right about it and what could have been better. And\u00a0 came \u2013 by far \u2013 the closest to my standards. Because I had the whole project in my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The award-winning musician \u2013 in 2003, Popovi\u0107 was the first Eastern European to be nominated for a W.C. Handy Award (Best New Artist Debut) \u2013 clearly enjoys the spotlight, but she’s happy to share the stage with other well-known and celebrated musicians. While Popovi\u0107 isn’t first female guitarist to be featured on the Experience Hendrix tour, she’s the most oft-appearing. Discussion of that project finds\u00a0 Popovi\u0107 letting her guard down just a bit, revealing an otherwise suppressed competitive streak. Describing herself as \u201cthe only woman to be called upon four times\u201d for the package tour, she makes a point of adding that other than her, none of the other female musicians \u201clasted more than one tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popovi\u0107 believes that she has developed her own style of playing guitar. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t happen overnight; you need to work on it,\u201d she says. From the beginning, she set out to learn from the recordings of greats like Albert King<\/strong> and Stevie Ray Vaughan<\/strong> (the latter is one of her major influences), but not to copy them. \u201cI always thought it\u2019s better to be different than just to copy other guitar players,\u201d she asserts. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to insist on your own style. And then after so many years, you wake up with your own licks. And that’s a great feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part 1… That modern approach made itself manifest from Popovi\u0107’s first American release, 2002’s Hush! Taking full advantage of her interest in \u2013 and skill at delivering \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41],"tags":[2971],"class_list":["post-12348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","tag-ana-popovic","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12351,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12348\/revisions\/12351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}