Millie Jackson

SEX AND SOUL

(BMG)

Twenty years and more after Millie Jackson reigned over soul and disco as the bitch queen of sexual situation comedy comes this reissue of her best-loved hits. Actually, Sex and Soul is a second volume of Jackson's hits, covering the years 1977 to 1979 -- her early work appears on Between the Sheets. That CD compiles Jackson's hits of her "red-clay soul" period; this one chronicles the songs that, without much stylistic alteration other than an occasional rhythm break, took her into the discos. Her basic approach was the remake: she took hits by guy singers and made them woman songs. Her field of play was vast -- from the red-clay work of Banks & Hampton's "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right" and the Womack Brothers' "Put Something Down on It" to radio pop like Kenny Loggins's "This Is It," disco ("If That Don't Turn You On"), and Eurodisco (Keith Forsey & Mats Bjorklund's "Never Change Lovers in the Middle of the Night"), all the better to bring her putdowns of male macho to every man's attention. And her specialty was the Isaac Hayes-style rap, intimately stated, from her to her lover -- none nastier, or truer, than the one in "This Is It." Jackson conveyed sarcasm and frustration but also a loving concern: she was tough love personified. With plenty of talk about man's you-know-what: "Logs and Thangs" and "wet noodles," and, finally, an admission: "Ladies, we cannot do without the almighty club!" Disco's deep skepticism about masculinity loved every bit of it.

-- Michael Freedberg