A happy blues singer should be an oxymoron, but Ann Rabson won't see it that way.

On Saturday, the acclaimed blues musician will bring her lively mix of guitar, piano and vocals to the Center for Well Being in Lemont.

Rabson's solo performance marks the halfway point of the Acoustic Brew Coffeehouse's spring concert season.

Good-natured, outgoing and funny, Rabson seems about the last person who should be singing the blues.

Yet few artists have enjoyed the success Rabson has seen her 40-year career.

"Ann is known internationally as a boogie-woogie barrelhouse musician," said manager Bonnie Tallman, adding that Rabson had just returned from Utah and Montana.

Those tours followed tours in Canada, Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic, where Rabson maintains her appeal.

Rabson believes her appeal is due in part to her songwriting.

"My music is about what unites people," she said.

Rabson's most recent song, "I Can't Get My Mind Off Of You," was inspired by the death of her dog but is sung in more general terms.

"I figure not everybody has experienced having a dog die, but everyone has experienced loss," she said. "I try to write and sing and perform for everyone."

In addition to standard venues like bars, festivals, and small listening rooms, Rabson enjoys playing in schools and nursing homes, Tallman said.

"I like prisons -- it's a nice captive audience," Rabson joked.

Those who attend Saturday's concert can expect a sweeter atmosphere.

"The Center for Well Being is warm, well-lit, friendly, family and folksy," said Jim Colbert, Acoustic Brew publicity director. "It's very alive."

Colbert said he believes the Center's bright atmosphere and acoustics will complement Rabson's musical style, which he described as being full of energy, honesty, and good old-fashioned barrelhouse belting.

"Ann's music is a throwback to the old juke joints of the south," Colbert said.

"You can't listen to her and not have a good time," he added.

According to Tallman, Rabson is known for her deep, warm contralto voice and her finger-picking guitar style.

Rabson is also noted as an extremely strong left-hand piano player.

"When Ann is on the piano, there's no need for a bass player," she said.

Her talent on the piano is one reason why it might be difficult to imagine that Rabson cannot read music.

"I suffer from dyslexia, so I can't tell which note is which," she said.

After falling in love with the blues she heard on the radio as a child, Rabson taught herself how to play the guitar.

"I'd been wanting to play forever, and finally in the summer between sophomore and junior years in high school I got a guitar. By the time I went back to school I could play," she said.

Rabson said she taught herself piano when she was 35, while she was working as a computer analyst to put her daughter through college.

"I don't learn well from others, except when I'm playing with them in jam sessions," she said. "I made my own way."

Despite the many hardships and inevitable scrapes she's endured over the course of a lifelong career in music, Rabson said her development into a successful musician has been mostly positive -- so positive that Rabson has had trouble identifying sorrow, one of the hallmarks of the blues.

"I had to record a song once but I had nothing to write about ... life was great," she said.

Rabson ended up with a track called "He Really Makes It Hard For Me To Sing the Blues."

"There is a very witty side to Ann's songwriting," Tallman said.

While Rabson often plays with others, including her band, Saffire--The Uppity Blues Women, her performance on Saturday will be strictly solo.