Irma Thomas

The lady who has the title of Soul Queen of New Orleans Irma Thomas ranks among the city’s R&B's greatest musical ambassadors. Unfortunately she has never enjoyed the commercial success of contemporaries like Aretha Franklin and Etta James.

But despite that title she is well regarded as a blues artist, having won two Handy Awards in 95 and 97 in the soul-blues category, as well as the 2005 Grammy for the Best Contemporary Blues Album. Track from this album After The Rain – with Sonny Landreth on slide.

1. Stone Survivor – 1970 – After The Rain – Tk 12 – 3.47

Born Irma Lee in Ponchatoula, LA, on February 18, 1941, as a teen she sang with a Baptist church choir, even auditioning for Specialty Records as a 13 year old. A year later, she had a child, and her father forced her to marry the baby's father. She then had another before busting up. At 17 she wed again, this time to one Andrew Thomas, having two more children before she again divorced, all before the age of 20.

Keeping her second ex-husband's surname, Thomas went to work as a waitress at a New Orleans' club, occasionally sitting in with the house band. When the club's owner sacked her for spending more time singing than waiting tables, the band leader helped her get a record deal, setting up auditions with the local Minit and Ronn labels. The latter issued her saucy debut single, "You Can Have My Husband (But Don't Mess with My Man)," in the spring of 1960, and the record quickly reached the number 22 spot on the Billboard R&B chart. However she split with Ronn over an argument about royalties and she moved to Minit..

Thomas' first Minit release, started a collaboration with songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint that would continue throughout her tenure with the label; although none of her six Minit singles were significant hits, each was brilliant, in particular 1962's "It's Raining" and the following year's "Ruler of My Heart,"

Track written for her by Allen Toussaint

2. It’s Raining – 1962 – Time is on my Side – Tk 6 – 2.10

Imperial Records acquired Minit in 1963, and Thomas' contract was included in the deal. Her first single for the label, a track she wrote herself reached number 17 on the Billboard pop Top 20,

3. Wish Someone Would Care – 1964 – Time is on my Side – Tk 15 – 2.23

"I was really at the low point when I wrote that", she later related in an interview . "I was just looking back at life. I was a 14-year-old mother, I had three kids when I was 17, and I was on my second marriage. At the time, I was breaking up with my husband, because he was giving me a hard time about being on stage. It was a song from my heart, that's probably why it sold so well; I really wanted someone to care, to stand beside me and care."

The A side of her next single from 1964 was also well regarded, but, it was the flip side that people now remember. Here it is.

4. Time is on my Side – 1964 – Time is on my Side – Tk 2 – 2.55

Imperial released nine singles and two albums from Irma during her three-year stay on the label, but her later Imperial releases didn't live up to the expectations

"I had this gut feeling that my career was about to take off", Irma explained later, "I mean, I would have been up there with the Gladys Knights and the Dionne Warwick’s and those people, because I was doing material equal to or better than the same stuff they were doing at the time [...] There was a misunderstanding about me as an artist. They thought I would be difficult to work with, when I really wasn't. I just wasn't getting good direction."

By 1966, her commercial momentum dissipated, and Imperial terminated her contract.

Thomas next signed with Chess Records. Chess sent her to the Fame studio at Muscle Shoals which resulted in several fine sourthern soul ballads, three of which were tried as a single.

One become a minor r&b hit in February 1968. Unfortunately this was also her last release on Chess - according to Irma, she didn't go along with their plans which meant that her singles didn't get proper national promotion from the label.

In the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Camille which destroyed the Miss coast in 1969, she relocated her children to Oakland, CA, later settling in Los Angeles. During this time Thomas supported her family by working a as a car parts salesperson

During this time she continued working club dates on weekends, and she also recorded for several labels, including Atlantic, for whom she cut nineteen tracks in three different sessions, but apart from a solitary single, none of this material was released. She later complained that her producers were trying to make her sound like Diana Ross. Two tracks from the early 1970s while in Calif, first from 1970, then 1973.

5. These Four Walls – 1970 –A Woman’s Viewpoint – Tk 3 – 3.09

6. In Between Tears – 1973 –A Woman’s Viewpoint – Tk 1 – 2.34

She relocated back to New Orleans in 1976, and a year later she married her present husband and manager Emile Jackson, with whom she opened a club ("Lion's Den") in New Orleans

Track from a 1977 live album, recorded in a Baton Rouge club, one she first recorded in 1964

7. Don’t Blame Him – 1977 – Safe With Me/Live – Tk 19 – start at 3.17, then continue through to the next track

8. Break Away – 1977 – Safe With Me/Live – Tk 20 – 3.03

Announcer for that track was one John Gourrier aka John Fred who with his Playboy Band had a huge hit in 1967 with Judy in Disguise (With Glasses) – as takeoff of Beatles’ Lucy in Disguise ….Fred never had another hit but stayed on the fringes of the music industry until he died in 2005

In 1980 Thomas surfaced on the RCS label with Safe with Me, an album that sought to update her sound to approximate disco-era R&B. It wasn’t a real success and was the last record she would make for six years

9. Safe With Me – 1980 – Safe With Me/Live – Tk 2 – 3.22

In 1985, she was approached by Rounder Records producer Scott Billington to make a comeback record, and this partnership with Rounder and Billington continues to this day. She has released eight albums with Rounder over the past 20 years.

10. You Can Think Twice – 1988 – The Way I Feel – Tk 4 – 3.40

The following year she issued True Believer,

A live album from 1991 called Live! Simply the Best earned her first-Grammy nomination.

Dan Penn track from 1996

11. I Count The Teardrops – 1996 – If You Want It – Tk 2 – 3.28

Thomas shifted gears radically for a 1998 album called Sing It!, which paired her with devout fans Marcia Ball and Tracy Nelson.

Track from this album, with Marcia Ball, not on piano but backing vocals

12. Yield Not to Temptation – 1997 – If You Want It – Tk 13– 2.54

Her most recent album, After the Rain, released in 2006, won the Grammy Award for the Best Contemporary Blues Album.

13. Another Man Done Gone – 2005 –After The Rain – Tk 7 – 3.49

Although Irma has had only limited success as a recording artist after her mid-sixties heyday, she has been able to continue singing and performing through the years. During the sixties she was a popular performer in the Southern college circuit, she toured with people like James Brown, she appeared in New York's famous Apollo theatre, and she even visited UK once. At age 66 she remains a very popular artist in New Orleans, and she has also found herself a small but dedicated cadre of fans elsewhere in the US and many other countries, too.