Shemekia Copeland isn’t worried that her star hasn’t risen higher in the nine years since her debut album came out. And she isn’t worried that she is a performer “knock-knock-knockin’ on 30’s door,” as she put it.

What Copeland is a little nervous about is the fact that she is in love, and that can be trouble for a blues singer.

“It’s easier to write and sing about a man when he’s an (ass). It’s tougher when he’s wonderful,” Copeland said during a recent interview.

Copeland is a featured performer at this weekend’s Wachusett Mountain Music Festival happening at the ski area in Princeton. The festival opens Saturday with a rock show featuring the Fools, Clutch Grabwell, and the Howl. Headliners the Fools sounded on top of its twisted game a few weeks back when the band played at the Locobazooka festival, and it is well worth reacquainting yourself, or simply discovering, this sometimes overlooked vertebra in the backbone of the New England rock scene.

The festival then turns things over to the blues on Sunday with a knockout bill featuring Elvin Bishop, Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers, Copeland, and Jon Short. Short is Worcester’s reigning acoustic blues man and recently cut “Backporch Blues: Sam Phillips Sessions,” another steel-guitar-carved gem, while traveling through Memphis and soaking up the spirit of his musical ancestors.

The music starts at noon on both days. Admission at the gate is $10 on Saturday and $30 on Sunday; tickets purchased online at www.wachusett.com in advance are $5 for Saturday and $25 for Sunday.

Copeland’s appearance at the festival comes on the heels of her fourth studio album, “The Soul Truth,” which is just further testament to this singer’s rich talents. With each album, Copeland sounds more assured, figuring ways to better focus the raw vocal power that first drew attention to her singing. This time out, Copeland worked with Steve Cropper as a producer, and as can be expected from one of the architects of the Stax Records soul sound, he shot Copeland’s blues full of down home soul. Cropper leant some of his trademark guitar playing to the project and rounded up such ringers as keyboard player Chuck Leavell, organ player Felix Cavaliere, and sax player Jim Horn. Cropper even teamed Copeland with singer Dobie Gray for a duet on the song “Used.”

But Cropper’s touch did not detour Copeland’s distinctive style, something that relies on a big and powerful delivery. And that voice works best on material with equal punch. On “The Soul Truth” Copeland excels on songs about strong women taking control of their situations.

“Nobody loves men more than me, but I have a young niece, she’s only 10, but I want her to know her strength,” Copeland said. “It’s always tough when you’re a woman in any business.”

Copeland is the daughter of blues guitar great Johnny Clyde Copeland. The senior Copeland asked his daughter to sing in his band when she was just 16. The teen grew into a young woman capable of staging performances of her own, and within a few years Copeland was opening shows for not only her father, but also B.B. King and Buddy Guy. In 1997, Alligator Records released Copeland’s debut album “Turn Up the Heat,” and the response was roundly positive from both critics and fans.

She followed up in 2000 with “Wicked,” which earned a Grammy nomination, and in 2002 with “Talking to Strangers” which was produced by Dr. John.

Being a legacy, though, hasn’t always made life easier for the singer.

“It faces me every time I’m on stage. I feel there is something I have to prove,” she said. “I just can’t wait for the time when I just pat on the mike and nobody cares. I see it happen all the time. B.B. King and Buddy Guy walk out on stage and people just go crazy. Buddy Guy can go out on stage and have a conversation and not play a lick and people will love it.”

Yet growing up around blues players, Copeland learned early on that such acclaim takes years to cultivate. But she also knows that singing the blues can provide a long-term career. And perhaps the most amazing thing is that she is a young woman who seems fully vested in the idea of using her raw talents to further a tradition that may not bring her an audience of the sort a pop singer can command but is instead an honest connection to music she said she loves.

•Comic Doug Stanhope stages his “Sordid Homecoming” Saturday at Ralph’s Chadwick Square Diner, 148 Grove St., Worcester, not tonight as reported in this space on Tuesday. The screw-up pretty much gives the rampaging Stanhope a free pass to humiliate me and my descendents for all eternity. Robbie Roadsteamer and the Steamy Bohemians join Stanhope in his return to the city of his birth.

Mastodon, Converge and the Bronx represent the headier end of the heavy music spectrum Saturday at The Palladium, 261 Main St., Worcester. OSB headlines tomorrow at Tammany Hall, 43 Pleasant St., Worcester. Uncle Billy’s Smokehouse is at Greendale’s Pub, 404 West Boylston St., Worcester, on Saturday.

Dennis Brennan is on the bill along with Rob Adams Saturday at JJ’s House of Blues, 395 Grafton St., Worcester. The Silverbacks, led by Mike Lynch, welcome guitarist Cliff Goodwin to the band’s gig Saturday at Sophie’s on Route 70 in Shrewsbury.

Juice Newton plays Sunday afternoon at Indian Ranch, Route 16 Webster. Cheryl Wheeler is at The Bull Run, Route 2A, Shirley, on Saturday.

The annual Pet Rock Festival is happening noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester. Though animal welfare is the overriding theme of the fest, each year Pet Rock brings in musical talent, and on Sunday will feature American Idol contestants Kevin Covais and Melissa McGhee.

Godsmack and Rob Zombie team tonight at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield. Roger Waters is at the shed tomorrow and Saturday.

The Agganis Arena at Boston University is hopping with classics this fall as Paul Simon plays there Oct. 22 and Bob Dylan shows up for dates Nov. 11 and 12. Tickets for the Simon concert are $85 and $65 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday. Tickets for Dylan, who has The Raconteurs opening, are $79.50 and $49.50, on sale at 10 .m. Saturday. Tickets for Simon and Dylan’s concerts will be available through Ticketmaster.

Scott McLennan can be reached at tgmusic1@yahoo.com.