It might seem strange for a European to be born into the blues, but that was the case for Ana Popović.

"This is the only thing that I remember as far as music growing up in Serbia," said the Belgrade-born singer, songwriter, and guitarist in a recent phone interview. "We never listened to Serbian music, and basically none of the European stuff ... ."

The blues came both from albums -- "I learned a lot of English from the records," she said, and "I sang those songs way before I could imagine and understand what they were talking about" -- and home jam sessions led by her father. (She eventually wormed her way into those sessions because she learned slide guitar.)

Her first concert (at age 13) was Tina Turner, and one can hear the vocal influence in the fiery defiance and soul of "Wrong Woman," from her 2009 album Blind for Love. Pair that with the subdued, quiet confidence of the same record's "More Real," and it's evident that this is an artist capable of nearly boundless blues. It's overstating her skills, but think Turner paired with Stevie Ray Vaughan and you'll get some sense of this woman's multifaceted attack.

On the day he's playing a Daytrotter.com show at RIBCO, singer/songwriter Dale Watson will release Carryin' on, and the album seems a natural fit for a guy who's been a country-music relic from the beginning. That's a compliment, by the way.

Since his 1995 debut Cheatin' Heart Attack, Watson has been writing and performing country songs in a style out of fashion for decades. But it wasn't until this new album that he was able to combine his own songs with musicians from the era he emulates.

His band for Carryin' on was assembled by steel guitarist Lloyd Green and included Hargus "Pig" Robbins on piano and Pete Wade on guitar -- all noted session players active in the 1960s and beyond.

While Watson's regular band -- with which he'll be performing in Rock Island -- is adept at old-school country, the 47-year-old said in a recent phone interview that people his age and younger simply can't beat the old-timers: "It's just something you have to have lived to play."

Roughly 100 seconds into "Down Down Down," the third track on Peter Wolf Crier's debut Inter-Be, the drums kick in. That's the duo in microcosm, as Peter Pisano's fully formed guitar-and-vocal songs are amplified by the drums and other accents Brian Moen added relatively late in the process.

The band will perform a Daytrotter.com show at RIBCO on Tuesday, June 22, and the moral of the Peter Wolf Crier story is to follow things where they lead.

Some people would never walk into a tattoo shop. Others would never walk into an art gallery.

Mark Schwalm-Bell wants to draw both groups to Indigo Body Art Gallery, located just off the Centennial Bridge at 717 West Third Street in Davenport.

Schwalm-Bell argues that most tattoo businesses scare off a lot of people, and it's evident walking in to Indigo that its atmosphere is in direct opposition to the stereotypical tattoo parlor; the studio, which opened February 15, is tastefully appointed and offers plenty of breathing room in its 1,100 square feet.

The owner/tattoo artist said he wanted to create the vibe of "a comfortable coffeehouse, a spoken-word coffeehouse. I wanted it to be a little more urban, a little more bohemian, a little more educated, a little more art-centric ... ." The narrow but deep Indigo space is an excellent starting point, with a brick eastern wall and a high ceiling in a building that's nearly 120 years old.

But it's the "art-centric" aspect that really distinguishes Indigo from other tattoo studios: Its walls showcase paintings divorced from traditional tattoo style or subject matter. Indigo currently features the work of three artists, including St. Ambrose University student Meghan Hollister and Iowa City resident Jason "Ja" Strating. Schwalm-Bell charges artists neither commission nor wall rent.

"Our vision for the studio is that we want to have two separate but complementary lines of business ... : a fully functioning art gallery as well as a traditional body-art studio ... ," Schwalm-Bell said. "We want to try to distance ourselves from the traditional body-art community ... ."

Schwalm-Bell speaks too broadly and absolutely in denigrating tattoo-studio culture, and he can occasionally come off as boastful. (He claims that hospitals and dentists' offices "are less stringent about things [sterilization] than I am.") But there's no denying that Indigo is a departure from the norm.

Schwalm-Bell doesn't expect much crossover business; he doubts many tattoo customers will buy art, or that many art patrons will get inked. But he said he hopes that as "a rather unique crossing point between art and body art," Indigo will be a comfortable place for people leery of body-art studios or art galleries. He also called his business "a completely different spin on the second-oldest profession in the world." ("Any time they find a mummy with skin on it, it has tattoos," Schwalm-Bell noted. Tattoos have been found on a mummy more than 5,000 years old.)

Indigo features a bookcase with movies, including the expected zombie flicks but also movies appropriate for children, and most curious readers will find some book that piques their interest. (How many other tattoo studios have a copy of Little Women?)

Indigo also has a vintage card catalog from the University of Iowa. Schwalm-Bell anticipates that the piece will one day sit in his wife's office. "In the meantime," he said, "it's where I hide candy for my wife and for kids." Yes, Schwalm-Bell sees Indigo as a place where a parent can bring the kids while getting tattooed or pierced.

He has been tattooing for seven years, but it was not a career choice approved by his family, particularly his mother. He said he first wanted tattoos because of his Great Uncle Bob - a 20-year Navy man with three tattoos on each arm. "I just always thought they were the coolest things in the world," Schwalm-Bell said. "I knew I wanted to get a tattoo when I was four or five years old; I used to talk about it all the time."

That was no different from kids wanting to be a firefighter or a professional football player, but Schwalm-Bell said that his dream stuck with him: "I knew I wanted to be heavily tattooed from the time I was in high school."

But there was community pressure against it to go with the family opposition. He recalled that in 1991, the captain of his school's cheer squad got a tattoo, which spurred a discussion in his English class. "It was this whole scandalous thing," he said. Each student was asked what tattoo he or she would get, and Schwalm-Bell said he wanted sleeves. The school guidance counselor called his parents.

"Needless to say, when I turned 18, I didn't run out and get a tattoo," Schwalm-Bell said. But when he was a 22-year-old senior at Luther College, he got the tattoo he'd wanted since age six: the Incredible Hulk on his shoulder. "That went over really, really, really poorly at my house," he said.

It's taken a long time for his mother to come around, but Schwalm-Bell said she's now proud of him. And he argued that tattoos aren't much different from haircuts: "These are all ways that we change ourselves ... . Tattoos are a slightly more colorful and more permanent means to that end."

For more information on Indigo Body Art Gallery (including a tattoo portfolio), visit IndigoBodyArtGallery.com.