Willson's will

Boston blues singer drops the swing thing

by Joe Gagne

After recording several singing jump-blues albums, Michelle Willson was tired of the same old thing. Committing to the

vision of New Orleans producer Scott Billington -- and losing half of her Evil Gal band because of it -- she remade herself as an eclectic, contemporary blues singer, retaining the saucy "Evil Gal" name. She and the band bring their new act to Slattery's this Thursday.

In the early '90s, Willson started the Evil Gal Festival Orchestra, named after the Leonard Feather tune "Evil Gal Blues." She liked the contrast between "evil," sounding so "horrible," and "gal," sounding so friendly: together, she says, they made a wry oxymoron that sounded delicious, like "jumbo shrimp." Two jump-blues albums later, Bullseye Blues introduced Willson to Billington, who insisted she take her next recording project to New Orleans.

"I had gotten to the point where I just wanted to kill myself all the time," Willson says, half-seriously. "I started singing to express myself. The more success that I got with the jump-blues thing . . . the more locked into this rollicking "blues mama" schtick I got, the more depressed I felt. I didn't care, I couldn't take it, I thought, `Screw it, I'm going to make an album about the song and the voice that I have instead of one little piece of it.'"

The resulting CD, Tryin' To Make a Little Love, features a host of styles, from the country-tinged "Life Rolls On" to the Latino-spiced "Corazon de Hielo" to the Aretha-styled "I Would Rather Do Without It" to mainline New Orleans R&B in "Ay La Bas." Her voice, sometimes buttery, sometimes husky and rough -- always with a heap of Ruth Brown-verve behind it -- shows itself to be readily adaptable.

There are a couple of jump numbers for the old fans, but they're not the focus of the album. Willson covers an amazing breadth of songwriters, from Los Lobos's David Hidalgo ("Someday") to Dr. John and Doc Pomus, who cowrote the tune "Responsibility" -- Willson is the first artist to cover it -- to rock-and-roller Joan Osborne, who wrote the playfully forward title tune about hooking up at a bar. The CD artwork spoofs that cut, showing Willson trying to hook up at the Caravan Club in Revere. Although she wasn't sure how the track would turn out when they first started putting it together, she put her faith in Billington's judgment that it was a good choice."

It's hard to tell that Willson was at first uncomfortable with the notion of a new band and a new locale. Resistant to change, she thought the Crescent City sounded interesting but not where she wanted to go. Billington wanted her to make the trip but not with her band, which turned her off. When picking tunes, Billington was steering her in new directions.

Willson implored him to hear her perform with the band before they made the final decision to leave them behind. Billington went to see Willson play live several times; believing the Evil Gal players knew her too well, the producer stuck to his guns.

Eventually, they worked out a compromise that allowed Willson to keep original keyboard player Dave Limina and saxman Scott Shetler. Added were crack studio players such as Johnny Vidacovich on drums, James Singleton on bass, and Cranston Clements on guitar. Well-known in the business, these session players were professional musicians, who were able to shift in midstream and play a tune a different way. The experience was invigorating.

"I hadn't felt like a singer in a long time, I'd felt like a workhorse, you know, book the gig, schedule the rehearsal, blah blah, send out the promo," Willson says. "It was a great gift to me to be able to be in that circumstance. Because when we got to the end of it all and we were listening to the playbacks, I thought, `Wow, I can really sing, this is really good,' and no one was more surprised than me."

What of the members of the band who weren't invited to come along? They all quit ("Can't say I blame them one bit"), except for baritone sax player Barry Fleischer. Currently the Evil Gal Festival Orchestra include Limina, Shetler, Fleischer, Ken Clark on organ, and Mike Neely on guitar. They use different drummers; at Slattery's, Craig Macintyre (Toni Lynn Washington band) will fill the slot. And although the jump blues is still there, it, as on the Tryin' To Make a Little Love CD, is no longer the focus of the show but just another of the eclectic styles she performs.

Michelle Willson and the Evil Gal Festival Orchestra play at 9 p.m. on June 10 at Slattery's in Fitchburg. Tickets are $4. Call (978) 342-8880.