| Ana Popovic is a multi-faceted artist with a unique world view. She’s a fiery yet tasteful guitar virtuoso who draws inspiration from classic American roots music and jazz as well as cutting edge rock; her soulful vocals have earned her fans as illustrious as the King of Soul, Solomon Burke, who hand-picked her to join him on a tour. She’s been garnering accolades throughout Europe and in the U.S. with a heavy touring schedule and with a series of popular CD releases over the last several years that have been embraced by fans of soulful, rockin’ music everywhere. Yet she’s also a survivor of a world most music fans in the U.S. can scarcely imagine, born and raised in the third world conditions of what would become war-ravaged Serbia, and after an idyllic childhood, lived there during the worst years of the Milosovic regime. Her upbringing has imbued her art and music with a seriousness of purpose and an emotional intensity that sets her well apart from the pack. Not only does Ana have heart and soul with a capital “S”, she’s also got a mind and a mission.
Popovic originally hails from the Serbian capitol of Belgrade; she began taking guitar lessons as a teenager in the early 1990s, and before long had surpassed her teacher and formed her first band. Within a few years she was touring throughout Europe on the strength of her first CD and regularly appearing on Yugoslavian television. But in the late 1990s she relocated to The Netherlands where she studied jazz and world music, and since then has released three more CDs and continued to grow and evolve as an original artist while touring throughout Europe and North America.
Still, her thoughts are never far from her homeland, where she still has many family members and friends. A recurring theme throughout “Still Making History” is the challenge of maintaining connections across both emotional and geographic borders. Having lived through so much uncertainty herself, Ana has developed a keen sense of empathy for others who are subject to societal and cultural circumstances beyond their own control and this is an idea she touches on frequently and often poignantly in her music.
Ana balances all of this depth and earnestness with a playful romantic streak a mile wide, an appealing sense of musicality in her virtuosic guitar playing, an ear for a catchy melody, and an upbeat and positive message that is hard to resist. “Still Making History” may be the most ambitious project she’s yet undertaken, but it’s easy to get the feeling that this is really just the beginning for Ana Popovic.
– Scott Dirks
“This record started off as a simple reminder of the difficult path I chose: my own country was facing difficult times and abandoned by the western world, I was moving to western Europe, and struggling to survive it all without my music being affected in a negative way.
I am very fortunate to be among a very few, especially from my country, who are able to do what they really love; when you’re born and raised in a third-world country, you do not belong anywhere. You need a job to survive, but you can’t get permission to do the work you’ve trained for. Doctors become secretaries, attorneys become cleaning ladies, and architects become hotel staff.
Despite these challenges, I decided to establish myself as a guitar player in a world of guitar players who’ve never had to face all these obstacles.
This record addresses the different worlds we live in, and how we try to connect for decades as individuals, or even hundreds of years as societies, and ultimately try to understand one another.
It talks about love: true love, blessed love, found love, never-born love, judged love, forbidden love. About lust, loneliness, and true happiness.
Still Making History is about global and cultural histories, as well as our own small, private histories. About how history is something that happens right NOW, that we are the ones who write it, and how it’s never too late to change things right now. We ARE the ones who create history.”
– Ana Popovic |
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