DVD Review: Ana Popović Band: An Evening at Trasimeno Lake

Text © Robert Barry Francos/FFanzeen, 2010
Images from the Internet

Ana Popović Band: An Evening at Trasimeno Lake
Directed by Dimone Pucci
MVD Visual / ArtisteXclusive, 2010
124 minutes, USD $19.95
Artistexclusive.com.
Anapopovic.com
MVDvisual.com

Born in Yugoslavia 34 years ago, Ana Popović has become a worldwide sensation. Having garnered many international awards, her brand of guitar-focused blues rock sets the stage afire.

Promoting her latest album, Blind For Love, Ana takes the stage with her main band, which consists of Andrew “Blaze” Thomas (the only US member) on drums, Michele Papadia on keyboards, and Ronald Jonker on a very rockin’ bass. Along with this core group, there are four other members that float in and out, including percussion, brass, and a back-up vocalist.

Utilizing six cameras and an amazing setting of a medieval castle in Italy, Ana and crew perform before a very enthusiastic crowd. Starting strong right off the bat, she opens with “Wrong Woman” (as in “you’re messing with”), a solid ‘70s rocker, especially on the choruses. Amazing, the huge amount of flying bugs, which are very visible to the camera thanks to the stage lighting (very well done, with an emphasis on the reds) does not seem to phase her performance or the other band members (though Michele definitely winches against them landing on his face, considering he’s the most stationary).

Ana knows how to strut with the best of them, moving around the stage with her electric Strat guitar, flailing at the neck and body to make a full-bodied sound, helped with the fill by the rhythm section behind her.

“How’d You Learn to Shake It Like That” is solid I-IV-V blues, right out of the Bonnie Raitt style-book, though it is unfair to compare the two actually, since Raitt leans more towards the classic blues end, and Ana the classic rock. And yet, on numbers like Keyshia Cole’s (one of the few covers) “U Complete Me,” Ana and band do a hard blues ballad burner, showcasing Ana’s guitar wizardry.

In another change of pace, “Lives That Don’t Exist” shows that Ana is handily familiar with da funk. The whole band knows how to get down with the wah-wah, with the bass blazing. And while Ana’s guitar is the definite forefront, she lets the rest of the band get their say, such as Michele’s electric keyboard turn on “Let Me Love You Babe.”

There are a couple of breaks between songs for brief interview segments, which I found kind of distracting, one of the few editing flaws of the DVD. Personally, I would have preferred just straight concert all the way through. Then suddenly at one point, without explanation, Ana’s in a different outfit, sitting on a chair, and with an acoustic rather than electric. I found this disconcerting… was it the second set? The encore?

Even without the wail of an electric, Ana proves her chops right out with “Doubt Everyone But Me,” a Latin-influenced number that features solos by some of the other musicians. This is followed up by the title track from her new release, Blind for Love, a slow love song that is quite lovely.

“Get Back Home to You,” the next cut, is right back to classic rock for which she whips up even on an acoustic. She finishes up the set with an R&B-laced “Love Fever” and another funker, “Hold On.”

Recorded in HD, the sound is crisp as one might expect, and the balance is pretty even, with Ana and her guitar up front, as should it be; but no one gets lost in the mix. Ana’s voice, which has a steely quality, is also clear, thankfully.).

For the extras, there are two songs by Ana alone on acoustic, recorded in the afternoon before the show: “Blind for Love” and “Steal Me Away.” Oddly, each song was recorded live in about four different places, and is spliced together, so there is a disconcerting jump in background sounds and in Ana’s vocals; in other words, each place as their own sound environment, which affects the voice, guitar and background “noise.” I’d rather have the whole song be consistent, but maybe that’s me. The other add-on is a 7-minute interview with Ana in different parts of the castle, as she talks about her life.

I’ve never heard Ana before, though I’ve heard of her, so it was nice to put a sound to the name. She proves that it is worth the wait.

Songlist
Wrong Woman (Blind for Love LP)
Is This Everything There Is
How’d You Learn to Shake It Like That
U Complete Me (Keyshia Cole)
Nothing Personal
Shadow After Dark
Lives That Don’t Exist
Let Me Love You Babe
Doubt Everyone But Me
Blind For Love
Get Back Home to You
Recall the Days
Love Fever
Hold On

Bonus Video (while this song starts off the live DVD, this is the studio version, which is not included):

The Original NONA HENDRYX

Text by Jim Downs and Julia Masi, intro by Robert Barry Francos
Article © 1983; RBF intro and live photo © 2010 by FFanzeen
Other images and video from the Internet

The following article with musician, actor, and performance artist Nona Hendryx was originally published in FFanzeen magazine, issue #11, in 1983. It was written by writer and photographer Jim Downs, and our managing editor, Julia Masi.

I had the opportunity to meet Nona when she was interviewed on the cable access show, Videowave, where I worked as a floor manager for a number of years. The picture below is from that day.

While we were not in the habit of printing articles that did not focus on rock’n’roll, but Nona was very nice to all of us there, with a joyous heart and an open mind, which not everyone had being on public access. We would all later learn about her relationship with Dusty Springfield, but it is Nona’s own funk queen work that brought her to both Videowave and FFanzeen. – RBF, 2010
Her light blue inside-out pants suit sports a bright silver patch that says, “Tailor Made.” And although she confesses to picking it up off the rack, on Nona Hendryx, it’s an original. Her style is all her own and her vice is unmistakable, and almost impossible to imitate.

Since her days with Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells (and then Labelle), to her more recent work with Talking Heads, or her new album, Nona, on RCA Records, she managed to transcend the trends and keep a thread of consistency in her music.

“I don’t particularly like my voice,” confesses Nona. “I just use it because it’s the only vehicle I have for getting my music across. And getting my words across. Poetry is my first love. I think it will continue to be, and music is a tool. I don’t think of myself as a singer.

“A lot of the singers today try to sing like Mahalia Jackson or Aretha (Franklin). I once did one of Mahalia’s songs when I was about 13 or 14. I don’t even remember which one it was. It’s not something I tried to emulate in my voice. I just never had any delusions in my mind that I could sing like Aretha so I didn’t ever try. I appreciate her voice.

“Music really hasn’t changed that much. The only changes have been the electric guitar and computerized music. Punk was a variation of the hippies. Punk shock. That to me is not a change. And the other biggest change is the involvement of women in the arts and, therefore, music. Those are the biggest changes I’ve seen,” notes Nona.

“After 22 years in the music business – I started at five,” she doesn’t see that it’s any easier for a woman now than it was in the early ‘60s, “it’s not so much easier, but it’s less restricted. If it were easier, you’d just be a musician.”

One of the major differences between being accepted as a musician and being labeled a “female musician” is the cosmetic packaging of the performer. “It just seems that to become a part of what’s considered the norm and to be successful, you do it (package yourself). They assume that you’re gonna look like Brooke Shields. Every woman who reaches that status, and the people who’ve gotten to that place like the Go-go’s, it all goes back to that whole image of being glamorous. There’s always someone trying to sell that to you. Because that’s necessary to be liked. I think, in a way, it’s sad because a lot of women with talent are not given the opportunity because they don’t look like Brooke Shields or Diana Ross, or Farrah Fawcett.” Oddly enough, no one has ever tried to package Nona. “I do such a good job of it myself,” she laughs. “I think I’m just a very visual person. I like visuals. I love the movies. I love clothes. I go buy make-up, and then go home and try it all on.”

Nona’s also quite handy with the pen and paint brush. “I was always good at art. It came naturally and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the creative process. The frustration. I love it!

“I love poetry. It was a way to write down my feelings and divorce myself from my feelings. Like a lot of teenagers, I was very shy, except when I was around my friends. Then I wasn’t shy; I was bad then. And I mean bad as in being bad. And after junior high, ‘cause I was switched from a different high school from my friends, which was a predominately white school, and I came from a neighborhood that I’d say was a 95% black neighborhood, I felt disoriented. A teacher there helped me; you know, introduced me to poetry and also worked with me on the poems. And I just took to it really quickly. I was really good at interpreting what was being said. And then I began to write some and took public speaking in high school and did a couple of plays.

“When I started going on the road with Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells, I tended to use that as a way of passing the hours or riding in a station wagon, writing short stories and developing a writing style for myself. And what I began to develop was one of – well – taking a word and – like, joy: joyfulness; joyless; overjoyed. All the things you can add to a word (like) the prefix and the suffix, and summing up the word. I love words.”

Her taste in poetry is eclectic, ranging from Shakespeare to e.e. cummings, to Nikki Giovanni, and every style in-between. When someone admits they have a hard time understanding when words become a poem, Nona is happy to explain: “The fact is that it’s verse and it needs nothing else to make it. It needs no music or visuals to make it. Although in modern poetry what matters structure within literature, within how you use verse. Poetry can be one word; if the choice of the word fits the feeling. And if it causes your mind to bounce off or if it’s like a magnet that draws you, it pulls you into the poem.”

She believes that writing lyrics is different from writing poems. “Poetry has its own meter. When you read it, you’re reading to the meter. In a song, music has that meter also, but you must write the words to flow with the music. The syllables must fit the notes of the melody.”

When Nona writes songs, she usually goes into the studio with “the musical ideas set and the lyrics can change up to the last minute of my singing it. Sometimes I think I have the right words for something and later on in singing it and singing another words by accident, it becomes the right word instead of the one I had.

“I always leave it open for change. The music is always changing. That way it’s still something I enjoy doing. I don’t do it the same way live as I do it on record. And I don’t do it the same way each time I do it. Each time I do it, it’s different.”