Jean Carn's lone Motown effort reunites the singer with producer Norman Connors, whose mid-'70s dates for Buddah effectively launched her solo career. Trust Me proves some distance removed from the jazz-funk context of their previous collaborations, however, instead couching Carn's potent vocals in a slickly commercial, radio-friendly setting that casts neither artist nor producer in a positive light. The album's biggest chart hit, a cover of the Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes classic "If You Don't Know Me by Now" that features the Temptations on backing vocals, exemplifies all of Trust Me's flaws: Carn and Connors rely on safe, conventional material and saleable gimmicks that render the music absolutely faceless. The album's title is sadly accurate. Rather than going for broke, Trust Me plays it far too close to the vest.
A near-lost chapter in the career of Jean Carn – her one and only album recorded for Motown, cut in the early 80s with production by Norman Connors! Oddly, although Connors was the first producer to give Jean Carn a chance back in the 70s as a smooth soul vocalist – finding her voice a perfect fit for his warm and jazzy arrangements – here, he's going for a style that's a bit more conventionally soul-based, with more guitars and mainstream production than you'd expect. Jean's still pretty great, though, showing why she was one of the best female soul artists of the modern soul era – on tunes that include "My Baby Loves Me", "Don't Let Me Slip Away", "Steady On My Mind", "Completeness", and "Better To Me".
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