Irma Thomas NY Times Article, Cut - n - Pasted

[PeaceNHarmony]

Irma Thomas, a Soul Queen Far Beyond New Orleans

As she turns 81, the singer whose intimacy matches her grandeur is the subject of a public television documentary, “Irma: My Life in Music.”



By Giovanni Russonello



Published Feb. 16, 2022Updated Feb. 17, 2022
The singer Irma Thomas has long been known as the Soul Queen of New Orleans, a title that feels both richly deserved and far too provincial. Her songs never topped the Billboard pop chart, but they did climb it. And even today, they’re covered by bar bands and in blues jams across the country.
Still, if the title suggests a mix of regality and relatability, it makes decent sense. Irma Thomas is, first and foremost, a straight shooter. You feel it in conversation, where she’s neither unduly humble nor conceited. And you can hear it in her singing, which achieves the grandeur often expected from R&B singers in the early 1960s, but has always retained a special kind of intimacy; she often sounds a bit like a more plain-spoken Etta James.
“Straight From the Heart,” from her breakthrough 1964 album, “Wish Someone Would Care,” is a demand for sincerity that might be a manifesto, and a standout in a catalog studded with gems. As is made clear in “Irma: My Life in Music,” a documentary debuting on PBS stations across the country this month, Thomas has treated baring her soul as serious work for the past six decades. And she has her rules, rooted in faith and practice: Gospel doesn’t belong in an R&B set. One ought to take requests, she said in a recent interview, to be sure an audience “won’t leave disappointed.”
It’s the same attitude that made Thomas an indispensable musical partner for the famed producer and songwriter Allen Toussaint: “He knew he could depend on me,” she said.


Thomas, who turns 81 on Friday, began singing professionally in her teens, while already raising four children, and by the mid-1960s her career was taking off. A stint in Los Angeles in the late ’60s and ’70s resulted in frustration — as did watching the Rolling Stones score a smash hit off “Time Is on My Side” after they’d heard her version. But she returned home in the mid-70s to a hero’s welcome, and has been a fixture at nearly every New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since it began more than half a century ago.
More recently, she’s found a new generation of fans through Netflix’s “Black Mirror,” where her haunting doo-wop hit, “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is [[Will Understand),” frequently cameos. In a phone conversation this month from her home in New Orleans East, Thomas was amicable and down-to-earth as ever — “You ask the questions, and I’ll answer ’em,” she said as we began — as she talked about growing up and thriving in New Orleans, and revealed which of her many songs she treasures the most. These are edited excerpts from the interview.

[Motown Eddie]

Thanks PNH for sharing the article about the Great Irma Thomas from the NY Times. One thing I can add to the piece is that her version of "Time Is On My Side" was the B-side of "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is" [according to the notes from EMI's 1992 collection, The Best of Irma Thomas, Vol. 1] . Really looking forward to seeing her documentary on PBS.

[Blaksoulfire]

When is it due to air...?

[reese]

When is it due to air...?

Check your local PBS listings.

[daviddesper]

I have been checking my listings and so far no sign of it.

[reese]

I have been checking my listings and so far no sign of it.

As with a lot of PBS programming, stations can broadcast programs at their discretion. In my area, it aired at the tail end of Black History Month. Other stations might have slated it for February as well.

[Boogiedown]

Ya in between selling Susie Ortmann and other crap

[nativeNY63]

...and [[Your generous donations will keep us bringing you the quality programming your enjoying right now...but such caliber broadcasts require your PBS membership to keep us....]] They were saying that when I was a young'un! I thought they were going off the air if I didn't help!!!