The Wheeling Heritage Music BluesFest ... or the part I saw

The Wheeling (that's wild and wonderful West Virginia) Heritage Music BluesFest has been getting great blues lineups the last few years, and I finally got a chance to spend a little time there on Saturday. It's a three-day event, and was able to squeeze in a visit Saturday afternoon and evening…

Ana Popovic
Next up was Ana Popovic, the Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, native, who's been slicing up the stage with her fiery blues guitar ever since she arrived in Memphis to record her first album in 2000.

She ran through everything from T-Bone Walker blues to Jimi Hendrix' "House Burning Down" with ease, and it was kinda fun to hear her introduce the songs in her Belgrade-accented English, then rip into the lyrics like a woman born to sing the blues.

And yes, in case it went unnoticed by the crowd leaning into the stage and staring, she's a lovely woman, if I can say that without sounding sexist. (BlueNotes can ignore the rules, since he's not an actual person who has undergone sensitivity training.) Not that Nick Moss, for example, is not a lovely hunk of a man, but watching Ana work the guitar and crowd has the feeling of watching a supermodel in a photo shoot for a guitar ad.
All right, she can play, too. Real good.