IRMA THOMAS
The Soul Queen of New Orleans

--By Dawn Eden

She was born Irma Lee on February 18th, 1941 in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, but the young Irma Lee soon moved with her parents to New Orleans. Her early musical influences included Mahalia Jackson, Pearl Bailey, Cecil Gant, The Five Blind Boys and especially Percy Mayfield, who was her father's favorite artist. As a teenager she sang in a gospel quartet in Home Mission Babtist Church, but her very first recording was a school song, which was recorded at Cosimo's studio.

When Irma Lee was fourteen years old, she got pregnant, and this meant that she couldn't go back to school anymore. At her father's insistence she married the child's father, and this short-lived marriage produced two children. At seventeen she met Andrew Thomas, whom she married a couple of years later, and gave birth to two more children. Although this marriage didn't last either, she decided to keep the name Thomas.

She was discovered by bandleader Tommy Ridgley while she was working as a waitress at a New Orleans club in 1959. Ridgley's band was playing at the club, and Irma asked if she could sing with them. However, her boss didn't like the idea at all, and eventually fired her because of singing instead of waiting on tables. At this point Ridgley came to her aid and promised to get her a recording contract. Irma first entered an audition sponsored by Larry McKinley and Joe Banashak who were starting their own Minit label, but since nothing seemed to come out of this, Ridgley arranged her a recording contract with another local label, Ron records. Her debut single, Dorothy LaBostrie's "(You Can Have My Husband, But Please) Don't Mess With My Man" hit #22 on the Billboard r&b chart in May 1960. Although this rather ordinary r&b shuffle was hardly one of Irma's best efforts, it was still an auspicious start for a recording career, and the flip side of the single, a melancholy blues ballad called "Set Me Free", hinted at her real talents.

Ron released only one more Irma Thomas single before she left the label - she felt that Ron didn't pay her the royalties she deserved, and joined Minit's roster instead. Most of her 1961-63 Minit recordings were written and produced by Allen Toussaint, and although none of these singles hit the national charts, most of them were good regional sellers. In fact, "It's Raining", "Ruler of My Heart" and "I Done Got Over It" are still some of her best-known songs. Otis Redding soon reworked "Ruler of My Heart" into "Pain in My Heart", and 25 years later "It's Raining" was used in the Jim Jarmusch movie "Down By Law".

In 1963 Minit was bought by Imperial Records (which was in turn bought by Liberty), and Irma became an Imperial artist. Her first Imperial single, "Wish Someone Would Care"/"Break-A-Way", was also the biggest hit of her career, reaching #17 on Billboard's pop chart in the spring 1964 - a respectable achievement considering that the first wave of Beatlemania had just hit the USA a few months earlier (Billboard didn't publish r&b charts in 1964, but the record was a top five hit on the Cashbox r&b chart). "Wish Someone Would Care" starts with a lamenting cry, which is followed by memorable autobiographical lyrics:

On the flip side of the single there was another topnotch song, this time written by Jackie DeShannon and Sharon Sheeley. "Break-A-Way" is a very enjoyable uptempo tune, perfect with hand claps and girl group chorus, and the lyrics seem to continue the same real-life story: "I made my reservation, I'm leaving town tomorrow, I'll find somebody new, and there'll be no more sorrow". Although the song didn't make the national US charts on its own, it was a local hit in New Orleans, and there was a British cover version by Beryl Marsden. Nearly twenty years later the song was recorded with even more success by Tracey Ullman, and recently also the original demo version by Jackie DeShannon has surfaced on CD.

Imperial released nine singles and two albums from Irma during her three-year stay on the label, and although none of the later singles was as successful as the first one, they were all great records. The first follow-up single, "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)"/"Time Is On My Side" was possibly the greatest of them all: "Anyone Who Knows..." is a magnificent uptown ballad, while the flip became better known as one of the Rolling Stones' early hits - although their cover version was only a bland note-for-note copy of Irma's recording.

Many of Irma's Imperial singles were big productions, similar to the records Dionne Warwick, Maxine Brown and Gladys Knight & Pips were making at the time. At first her material was recorded in Los Angeles (with backing vocals by Darlene Love and the Blossoms), but some of her later records were cut in New York under the supervision of Jerry Ragovoy, who also produced numerous memorable records with Garnet Mimms, Howard Tate and Lorraine Ellison. Imperial was also able to get her first class material from many of the top songwriters, including Van McCoy ("Times Have Changed", "He's My Guy", "It's Starting To Get To Me Now", "Some Things You Never Get Used To"), Randy Newman ("While the City Sleeps", "Baby Don't Look Down"), and Burt Bacharach and Hal David ("Live Again", "Long After Tonight Is All Over" - both unissued at the time).

Her first four Imperial singles all charted on Billboard's pop chart, but unfortunately the success of her later Imperial releases didn't live up to the expectations (one of them missed charts completely, and four of them "bubbled under", but did not hit the Top 100). "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 Warwicks 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."

Another reason for the negligible success of these records might be that Imperial didn't have too many successful r&b acts at the time (the days of Fats Domino were long gone), and it's possible that the company simply wasn't very good at promoting them. Even if that was the case, you can't blame Imperial for not trying to do their best in 1965-66. They briefly reunited Irma with her former mentor, Allen Toussaint, who wrote and produced two real gems for her, "Take a Look" and "Wait, Wait, Wait", and when "Take a Look" somehow failed to reach the Hot One Hundred, they brought in James Brown to produce one more final attempt ("It's a Man's - Woman's World") at reviving her career. Although the song borrowed intriguing elements from at least three previous number one r&b hits ("It's a Man's Man's Man's World", "When a Man Loves a Woman" and "You'll Lose a Good Thing"), it didn't become the hit everybody hoped for, and today Irma considers it the worst record she's ever done.

In 1967 Imperial didn't renew Irma's contract, and after a short break she signed with Chess Records. At that time Chess was sending many of their top artists down to Muscle Shoals instead of recording them at their own studios in Chicago, and Muscle Shoals was also Irma's next destination. Two sessions at Rick Hall's Fame studio produced several fine sourthern soul ballads, three of which were tried as a single.

Her first effort for the label, "Somewhere Crying", failed to chart, and her cover version of Helene Smith's "A Woman Will Do Wrong" didn't do better (the song was also covered by Dee Dee Sharp on Atco, but it was Smith's original that hit the charts), but her reading of Otis Redding's "Good to Me" managed to 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 ("They wanted to control my life, and I wasn't gonna go for that"), which meant that her singles didn't get proper national promotion from the label.

Irma's career took a downward turn after her frustrating experiences with Chess, and in January 1970 she moved to California, where she lived for a few years, working as an automobile parts sale person. During this time she continued working club dates on weekends, and she also recorded for several labels (including an album, "In Between Tears", produced by Jerry Williams a.k.a. Swamp Dogg), but the results were mostly unremarkable. Finally, in mid-seventies she moved back to New Orleans, where she was still popular as a live performer, and in 1977 she married her present husband and manager Emile Jackson, with whom she also owns a club in New Orleans.

She had signed a recording contract with the Sansu label, but there were no releases from her on Sansu - instead the label recorded Irma's performance at the 1976 New Orleans Jazz Festival without consulting her at all. This material has later come out on Island and Charly ("Hip Shakin' Mama"), but Irma claims that she got no royalties from these releases. Her next studio album, "Soul Queen of New Orleans" (Maison de Soul, 1977) was a modest effort, which mostly contained new versions of her old hits. "Safe With Me" (RCS, 1980) put her in a more modern setting, but despite receiving a good deal of initial attention for the album, the label wasn't able to make Irma a pop star.

After the failure of "Safe With Me" Irma didn't record anything for six or seven years, but she continued to perform locally with her own band. Her comeback as a recording artist started in 1986, when Scott Billington of Rounder Records approached her - author Jeff Hannusch (who had interviewed her in the book "I Hear You Knockin'") had told the company about her. Her first Rounder album "The New Rules" was produced by Irma and Scott Billington, and it was followed by another set, "The Way I Feel", both of which contained a mixture of new songs and remakes of already familiar material. The third album, "Live! Simply the Best", gained her a Grammy nomination in 1991. It was recorded at Slim's in San Francisco, and Irma was backed by her own band, the Professionals.

After another excellent studio album, "True Believer" in 1993, she got a chance to do a gospel album. "It's my roots", she told in a Soul Express magazine interview. "I had been wanting to do it for years, but I never had the budget to do it with". Irma chose the material herself with some songs being her special favorites. The music on "Walk Around Heaven" (1994) was mainly slow and passionate - most of the songs were traditional gospel songs, and Irma's singing was really strong. Nowadays she is singing regularly in a chuch choir in First African Baptist Church of New Orleans. "I don't do gospel music when I'm singing R&B", she says, "I don't mix the two of them in the same show".

Fortunately Irma didn't abandon secular music completely, although it took three years before she released her next album, "The Story of My Life" (1997), again on Rounder. "The big problem has been finding material that I can relate to and record", she complained in an Offbeat magazine interview shortly after the release of the album, "I feel young, but the reality is that I'm a mature 55-year-old woman. It's not easy finding appropriate material that I can record that will appeal to my fans. I'm really selective because I have to live the songs I record."

The following album, "Sing It!" (1998) was something special, as Irma joined her forces with two of her long-time fans, Marcia Ball and Tracy Nelson. They all sang together on a number of songs, while each of them also got to sing a couple of solo tracks. The record got pretty good reviews, and the trio performed together on several occasions.

Irma's most recent album, "My Heart's In Memphis: The Songs Of Dan Penn", came out in August 2000. As the title indicates, it consists of songs written by Dan Penn. Although there are a few remakes of previously recorded tunes ("I'm Your Puppet", "Woman Left Lonely" and "Zero Will Power"), most of the material is new and specially written for the album. A well-produced album with several outstanding performances, this is the most of sophisticated of Irma's Rounder albums, and perhaps also the best.

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 (which was portrayed in the film "Animal House"), she toured with people like James Brown, she appeared in New York's famous Apollo theatre, and she even visited UK once. Today 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. Irma seems to be quite well off, and unlike many other sixties soul singers, she shows no bitterness for the less fortunate things that have happened to her during her career.

Jyrki Ilva
Helsinki, Finland
(ilva@cc.helsinki.fi)

Sources:
-Mai Cramer: Irma Thomas. Mai's Interview of the Month - September, 1998.
-Dawn Eden: Liner notes to "Time Is On My Side. The Best of Irma Thomas vol.1" (EMI CDP-97988).
-Roger Hahn: Irma Thomas' Heart May Be in Memphis, But Her Soul Will Always Be in New Orleans. Offbeat, August 2000.
-Jeff Hannusch a.k.a. Almost Slim: I Hear You Knockin'. The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm & Blues. (1985)
-Jeff Hannusch: Irma Rules! Offbeat, February 1997.
-Jeff Hannusch: Backtalk with Irma Thomas. Offbeat, August 2000.
-Gerri Hirshey: Nowhere To Run. The Story of Soul Music. (1984)
-Michael Earl Lane: Soul Queen of New Orleans. (2000)
-Juhani Ritvanen: Irma Thomas. Blues News 4/80.
-John Sinclair: Irma Thomas. An audience with the Soul Queen of New Orleans. Blues Access 41 (Spring 2000).
-Heikki Suosalo: Interview with Irma Thomas. Soul Express 4/94.
-Philip van Vleck: Irma Thomas: The Soul Queen of New Orleans. The Herald-Sun, Sept. 6, 2001.
-Joel Whitburn: Top R&B Singles 1942-1988. (1988)

IRMA THOMAS LP/CD DISCOGRAPHY (courtesy of Eric LeBlanc):