Consumer Guide Album

Ann Peebles: Tellin' It [Hi, 1975]
Peebles's small, rough-cut ruby of a voice can't buy her Aretha's kind of time, her hesitant pursuit of a dramatic frame, an artistic self, will never do the duty of a real persona. Which may mean that Willie Mitchell is wrong for her. Not only does this seamless funk deprive her of the sharply accentuated settings her instrument was created for, but his concentration on music to the exclusion of image leaves her singing warmed-over Millie Jackson wife-and-other-woman lyrics with the wan confusion they deserve. B−