Rock, blues songstress Grace Potter defies labels

Young Grace Potter’s parents laid down the law.

“They told me, ‘OK, you can watch ‘Ghostbusters’ for the 35th time, but you can’t do it by sitting on the couch. You have to do something with your hands.’”

So she picked up a musical instrument, right?

No, she picked up a knife and began carving a piece of wood.

This explains why the singer-guitarist who will play the Freeman Stage at Bayside in Selbyville on Tuesday, July 26, has been seen not only in the expected publications — Spin, Entertainment Weekly and Billboard — but ... can this be correct? Popular Mechanics?

“I was a general contractor when I was paying for my first record,” Potter said. Her specialty remains restoring historic buildings. “Tearing down an old house and building a new one is the most-wasteful thing we do as humans,” she says.

She was featured in the magazine last year beneath the headline: “How to Work with Reclaimed Wood: Important lessons on choosing the right piece, avoiding rot, and knowing when to stop sanding.”

These are tips Potter picked up while growing up in Vermont, with a dad who was a carpenter and a mother who was a woodworker as well as a pianist. She’s the one who taught Grace how to play. Listening to Janis Joplin and all of the big-voiced blues-rockers seems to be how Potter learned to sing.

Early on, it was always hands on. She toured with a ponderous Hammond B-3 organ with a pair of Leslie speakers that “would break every other show,” she said. “So I had to learn how to solder and fix my instruments.”

She built sets and played host to festivals where she calculated load-bearing beams with “50 kids jumping up and down on a crazy wooden castle” and still does the math on square footage so that “we could rent the correct Airbnb for 12 people.”

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals are from Vermont, but the one-time favorite of the Northeaster jam-band crowd no longer belongs to Vermont. And it’s not that Potter and her mates — somewhat literally, she’s married to drummer Matt Burr — are one of the hottest things on iTunes. The band’s best-selling album, 2012’s “The Lion the Beast the Beat” reached a modestly cool No. 17 on Billboard’s chart. Her 2015 solo album, “Midnight,” experimented with the sounds of 1980s MTV power pop. And Potter’s biggest hit has actually been a duet with Kenny Chesney, “You and Tequila,” nominated for Single of the Year Vocal Collaboration at the American Country Awards.

He reputation is building on the idea that the 33-year-old Potter is emerging as one of those omnipresent music forces. She’s been onstage with The Rolling Stones, singing “Gimme Shelter” with Mick. The band has opened for The Black Crowes and The Dave Matthews Band. Their songs have been heard in movies, as well.

And she’s taking notes. “Robert Plant, Kenny Chesney, Mavis Staples, Taj Mahal, this incredible array of folks, all taught me a way to carry yourself with dignity.”

All while putting on a show.

Potter flaunts her sexuality. It surges through her every time she reaches for her Flying V electric guitar.

“Mick Jagger knows how to run a show,” she said. “It’s all about pacing. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. His output is amazing, but his movements are subtle. As I get older, I’ll have to adhere to these rules.”

Her current tour features songs from throughout her career.

“The years that I put into this, and how hard I worked to write every single song,” she said. “I’m proud of them all.”

She’s been on Neil Young’s tour bus, admiring the walnut bar stools. And Willie Nelson’s bus as well.

“Neil’s tour bus looks like the inside of his brain,” she says, “just like Willie’s tour bus looks like the inside of Willie’s brain.”

Last year, Potter was awarded the ASCAP Harry Chapin Vanguard Award by World Hunger Year for her work addressing that issue.

“It’s really more about this conversation I’m trying to start,” she said. “It’s not about donating cans on a shelf, it’s about re-educationg people that it’s inefficient to expect food to come from halfway across the country or the world. And understanding how much water it takes to grow that food.

“I believe it’s an inherent duty, especially my generation, as we start having children, as we start pumping them out, that we understand that food is not a magic thing that comes in plastic wrapping and you pay $3.95 at the register.”

IF YOU GO

WHO: Grace Potter

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 26

WHERE: Freeman Stage at Bayside, 31750 Lake View Dr., Selbyville

COST: $39

MORE INFO: 302-436-3015,

www.freemanstage.org