Cathy Jean - Little Sick Twist - (2005)

Cathy Jean’s “Little Sick Twist” takes some getting used to. Maybe it’s the sex-kitten pinup art that adorns her CDs and almost every page of liner notes, or maybe it’s because a couple of tunes sound like Chrissie Hynde or Patti Smith talking dirty (“Paint My Fence,” for example, or “Brunettes,” about a torrid lesbian encounter). Or maybe it’s the notion that someone so physically attractive shouldn’t have the blues in the first place. But when you listen to these 15 tunes, all but one of which bear Cathy Jean’s solo writing credit, you find two truths: One, her vocal prowess and lyrical phrasing are considerable, and two, if you listen long enough you’ll get what you need. Smoky blues numbers such as “Something Dark Approaching” appear alongside tracks such as “Slow Down,” a fiddle and banjo tune with its heart in Nashville, its gut in Memphis, and its nethers further south.

On the blues-rocking “Not Pretty,” the singer describes herself as tan and buff– until she reveals the psychic damage she’s endured and the neediness that compels her to beg the man she’s addressing to “come hang out with me.” “Happy Couple” uses the jump blues idiom to address a crumbling live-in relationship where the guy won’t pay half of the bills. “No More Pecking,” a piano bar blues featuring cornet, tells a story of sexual dysfunction in which the relationship has become one-sided, the man happier to be playing video games than tapping the narrator. Risky song subjects and the fine musicianship of the supporting players suggest that when Jean gets a wider audience, it’s going to be because, deep down, she’s all blues– postmodernist Betty Paige irony notwithstanding. Michael Cala