On her third album, the bold, sassy and sexy youing chanteuse Robin McKelle comes into her own. "Mess Around" marks a significant stylistic change for the irrepressible Ms. McKelle as she fully embraces her love for R&B, delivering a program that brings in the influences of Etta James, Ray Charles, and early Bette Midler to shape a driving horn-driven sound that sets off Robin's dynamic voice in a whole new way.

  To underscore this natural but fresh progression of direction, Robin enlists funk legend Fred Wesley as arranger of a couple of cuts: an unexpected take of the Bee Gees' "Lonely Nights" , "I Can't See Nobody" and Doc Pomus' blues evergreen "Lonely Avenue". McKelle is already well-known for her creative choices of cover tunes, bringing the contemporary songbook into jazz focus, and "Mess Around" doesn't disappoint in this respect. In addition to Pomus and the Brothers Gibb, Leonard Cohen, Willie Dixon and Lennon/McCartney all get selected tunes transformed into the new McKelle sound. Add in a vintage standard ("Cry me A River") and four originals of striking maturity, and you have an 11-track collection that rocks, rolls, flirts and seduces with maximum impact...