**1/2 Michelle Willson

TRYIN' TO MAKE A LITTLE LOVE

(Bullseye Blues & Jazz)

This doesn't sound like the same Michelle Willson who's been sassing the blues with the help of Boston's best for the past few years. Yeah, she's still got a powerful, gravel-cracked voice to put you in mind of Dinah Washington, and some of the songs here are of the bawdy, jazzy variety she fashioned on her two earlier releases. But Willson is branching out in all kinds of directions. Selections on Tryin' To Make a Little Love range from '60s-style gospel-soul shouts and creamy New Orleans funk to a little smoldering Latin jazz, all done with professional panache. Songwriters include Joan Osborne, the boys from Los Lobos, Southern-fried pop legends Dan Webb and Spooner Oldham, Willson herself, and good old "copyright control." The moral of the story? Willson is capable of wrestling any song into submission, but she does so without necessarily leaving a personal stamp. An exception is the gritty bit of city blues called "Half Past the Blues," where she purrs, cries, rumbles like an eight-cylinder engine, and really tells a story.

-- Bill Kisliuk