You know exactly what you’re getting into 20 seconds after this CD begins: the funk groove, the sassy shouts, the exhortations like “Everybody get up!” and “Let’s party, y’all!” When did being a bluesmama become such a depressing, two-dimensional commodity? Bluesmen are often criticized, and rightly so, for soulless posturing and overemoting, but we pass it off with our female artists as strength. Which, of course, cheapens the people who really ARE feeling it.

If you haven’t guessed by now, Trudy’s not feeling it, at least not all the way. That opening track is a cover of “Shake Rattle And Roll,” but covering that song as funk is sort of like doing “Mannish Boy” as a polka. No matter how much you give it, the track’s already crippled. Some rhythms just don’t translate. Likewise, standard torchers like “Help Me Through The Day” start fine and then get waylaid by a general insincerity that forces Lynn to indicate real emotions with a lot of inappropriate vocal pyrotechniques. She gets compared to Tina Turner by some, but Tina would have taken the full measure of this song and not set off the explosions until it was time.

There’s good news, though, because when the emotional stakes are lowered, Trudy does a fine job at melting herself over the pop-soul arrangements. “Heart Of Stone” and “Nothing But Love” are tasteful little clouds of pain and regret that Lynn essays with the feel of someone who’s resigned herself to a lot, while “Ace In The Hole” is just that, lots of Hammond B-3 wrapping itself around Lynn’s sweet ode to domesticity like a new mink stole. I know what time it is: it’s time for Lynn to find Willie Mitchell. Like, yesterday.