So it is that every year, Michelle Willson chooses this venue for the Evil Gal's annual January birthday bash.  Countless fans wait all year for her arrival, evidenced by the full house, the presents.... and a cake, topped with a fiery dragon.  The Evil Gal Festival Band consists of some of Berklee's finest.

Pianist, Keyboardist, Composer, Arranger, and Educator Shinichi Otsu has been touring throughout the United States and Canada since 1999 with Greg Piccolo and Heavy Juice as a keyboardist and musical director.  His passion for this music keeps him really busy, playing all over New England.

Wolf Ginandes, bass, is THE instrument repairman at Berklee, as well as playing with the Mohegan Sun All-Stars and on the new Community Auditions cable TV program.  The persistent grin on his face demonstrates his love of this music. Mike Williams, guitar, also teaches at Berklee,  and is also top-notch composer; he is on Michelle's second album and co-wrote the title track, So Emotional. Wolf and Mike, together, create magic!

Steve Chaggaris, drums, was sitting in with the band this evening. He only had a week to prepare all the material.  Simplicity and patience are the key to his charm, setting the time through a combination of bass drum and high hat, and monitoring Mike and Wolf. He finally let loose on I Need Your Lovin, trading fours with the tenor sax.

Scotty Shetler is a lively, innovative jump blues artist and  extraordinary reedman: sax, bari, bass clarinet, pennywhistle, and even mandolin.  He's been on all four of Michelle's albums for Rounder Records, Evil Gal Blues, So Emotional, Tryin' To Make a Little Love, and Wake Up Call, and also did most of the horn arrangements. They've performed in 18 countries together, plus he's worked with Johnny Adams, Gene Pitney and Sam McClain.

The Evil Gal Festival Band warmed up the audience with hot swinging tunes, building up anticipation for who/what was to come.

The room became supercharged as soon as Michelle Willson stepped up on the stage, when she launched into Evil Gal Blues  A gifted vocalist, she gets deeply, emotionally involved with the melody whether it's upbeat or soulful, and makes it her own with her powerful, expressive voice.  It's contagious, one can sense the immediate connection between her and the audience.

Michelle...  Cheerful, full of life, earthy, she's been singing all her life - in church, school; she studied singing privately for 15 years.  Her idols are Dinah Washington and Ruth Brown. Her first band was Mimi Jones.  Then she and her former husband started a huge 12 piece band, Animal Train. On her own in the fall of 1992, She started Evil Gal, and won a Boston Blues contest, then went on to Memphis and won the Blues Foundation's International Blues contest in 1993.  She was signed to rounder records shortly thereafter. She's toured 18 countries and been nominated for several W. C. Handy awards.

Geoffrey Himes reviewed her first album Evil Gal and says:
"On her debut album, "Evil Gal Blues," Willson takes on the early-'50s R&B repertoire of Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown, and LaVern Baker and makes it her own with a voice as expressive as it is overpowering. On an uptempo number like Baker's "Voodoo Voodoo," Willson manages to maintain a laughing, purring tone even as she spits out syllables like machine gun fire. On the ballad standard, "At Last," Willson stretches out notes in long resonant trills which reflect her joy at finding love at long last."

After a 4-year hiatus, she was invited by Brian Barlow of Worcester Jazz Station WICN, to do a couple of radio shows.  Now the Evil Gal can be heard every week on NPR, WICN 90.5 or www.wicn.org, Friday mornings 10am-1pm with a myriad of Voices of Jazz, and Saturdays from 4-7pm with Jazz 'n Blue, mostly blues based jazz music from the 1920's - current times; (w/ a personal bias towards 40's-50's R&B ;) also occasionally, a bit of social commentary and humor from Lord Buckley, Slim Gaillard, Del Close....she's helping YOU get your Saturday night started off right! 

The Evil Gal Festival Band will be playing at the Roots & Rhythm festival in Honesdale, PA on June 20th, and they are beginning work on a new recording project, scheduled to be finished and released later this year.  Stay tuned.

This evening, she sang many of her own original songs; Corazon Di Jelo was beautifully done in Spanish.  Other originals: People Say, Shifting Sands.   More tunes were Responsibility, one of last tunes written by Doc Pomus and Dr. John (and she recorded the original version of this tune!) She's energetic, indefatigable, performing a staggering number of songs in just a few hours: Strange Things Happen, Half Past The Blues, Pleasin' You, Wake Up Call, Ay La Bas, I'm Just Your Fool, Voodoo, Voodoo; Each Day, Cry Me a River, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Leap of Faith, Bring It Home To Me. Scott heartwarming on mandolin, backing Michelle on Life Goes On, by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. What an extraordinary evening!

Come the Finale, Bring It Home To Me - pursued by Scott, Steve Chaggaris finally was let loose on drums, challenging the tenor, the band thundering toward a tumultuous ending. Then suddenly, it was all over. The band started packing up.

But the audience would not let them go that easily.  Michelle searched for a familiar tune and urged the audience to sing along, "You all know the words to At Last." Some of them did.  (This is, was, and always will be, Etta James song, in spite of it being played for Barack & Michelle Obama at most of the inauguration balls!)

The band unleashed one more tune, a rabble rousing Race Horse, originally by Buddy Johnson, that sent pulses throbbing, and the crowd went wild, infecting the musicians.

With the band playing ferociously, Scott jumped up onto a table, raging through Race Horse, fanatical on tenor sax, and he was almost assaulted by one excited lady.