Music has been part of Philly area singer Deb Callahan’s life since she was a kid listening to — and loving — her mother’s Nina Simone records and learning to appreciate Black musical traditions at the Elma Lewis School in the Roxbury section of Boston.

Callahan grew up in a musical family and was exposed early on to music from a variety of genres. She is white, raised by white parents, but grew up in a multiracial family. Her parents adopted two Black children.

“I think part of the journey for [my parents] was trying to make sure that everybody’s cultural heritage was understood and honored and so we all went to Elma Lewis School for Black cultural arts. I think that was definitely formative for me,” she said. “I took music, art and dance, and a lot of that spoke to me, and also the experience of being a minority in a school where I was one of the few white kids in the school.”

Elma Lewis was where she was exposed to gospel music and “Black Nativity,” the Christmas musical based on the writing of Harlem Renaissance poet and activist Langston Hughes.

In high school, she performed in theater and chorus. Music continued to be central to her life, though it took a back seat for a time while she attended Bowdoin College in Maine. She explains, “I didn’t start performing professionally or publicly until I moved to Philly to go to grad school and I got my master’s in social work, and then after a few years I thought, ‘Hey, what about this? What about this whole music side of me?’”

She looked for an outlet and found it singing the blues during open mic nights at the now-closed club/restaurant Warmdaddy’s. That’s where she met other musicians and formed her first band — and that defined the rest of her musical career. And though she is known for the blues, it is not her primary focus. Her repertoire encompasses many genres from soul to gospel to roots, rock and funk. She also wrote her own tunes.

“I’m in the blues market and I love the blues, but I would say I am not typical in many ways,” she said.

On Wednesday, July 29, the Deb Callahan Band – together with well-known local pianist Rev. Chris – is giving her diverse repertoire a bit of rest to focus instead on the music of the immortal Ray Charles as part of the Pastorius Park Summer Concerts series. She gave her Ray Charles repertoire a spin at The Royal in Glenside in the fall and has longed to return to it. The Pastorius concert seemed like a good opportunity.

“I’ve performed a lot of years now,” Callahan said. “Some time over the last year, I was thinking about how the market has been leaning toward cover bands a lot. There are so many tribute bands and that kind of stuff. A part of me is annoyed about it. They draw really well and I think people want to listen to music they know. I thought it might be cool to not do a tribute band because I really don’t want to do that, but maybe something different.”

That “something different” is a celebration of the music of someone she loves.

It would be more obvious, she says, to perform the music of a female artist like Bonnie Raitt, and that likely would go over well but, again, that kind of show would be much closer to the cover band she doesn’t want to do. However, she thought performing the works of Ray Charles would be more interesting because it’s an amalgamation of blues, roots, gospel, soul and even a little bit of country.

“Obviously, I don’t look or sound like Ray Charles,” Callahan said. “So it’s not going to be a copy — it’s going to be its own thing, which I guess I felt would be more original, even though it’s covering somebody else’s music.”

The Pastorius concert, sponsored by Kathy Krebs and Rachel Reilly with Elfant Wissahickon Realtors, begins at 7:30 p.m., and it’s free. It’s the final show for this summer’s series.

Temple Health-Chestnut Hill Hospital sponsors the series. Pastorius Park is at 8177 Roanoke St.