MILLIE JACKSON—Hard Times (Spring) :: Millie Jackson sure isn’t kidding when she sings “The Blues Don’t Get Tired Of Me.” In the title song, she enumerates a former lover’s “charms”: “He beat me every night...he killed the dog...he put roller skates on granny’s crutches,” and on “Blufunkes,” she limns the current situation: “Everybody’s suffering from Reaganomics/They got nuclear fright and atom bomics.” But Dear Millie tells us that to overcome adversity, all you have to do is “Put funk in your blues.” It may be simplistic advice, but sure gets Millie through, as we find put in the hilarious mini-drama “Mess On Your Hands/. Finger Rap.” Of course, you’ll have to buy the record to find out how TWO WRONGED WOMEN TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS, since the radio version is heavily bleeped—remember, Jackson has a certain, er, quotient to maintain. Even with the expletives deleted, though, Hard Times (get it?) delivers the goods, since Millie Jackson is one of the best straight ahead soul singers around. And that’s no shit. J.F.