Irma Thomas: Simply Grand

By Steve Morley

Singer Irma Thomas is proof that not all legends necessarily become household names. The first-rate R&B vocalist, who emerged from the New Orleans music scene in the early '60s, earned a permanent place on the short list of soul music greats despite her failure to scale the mainstream charts. Her legacy includes recording a song that provided the template for an early rock classic by The Rolling Stones.

That track’s title, "Time Is on My Side," now seems prophetic, as Thomas recently earned her first Grammy—47 years after her recording debut—for her 2006 release, After the Rain. Her latest disc, Simply Grand, revisits the broad mixture of styles on her previous collection and again features numerous selections that resonate deeply with the beleaguered state of hurricane-and-flood-battered New Orleans.

A happier nod to the Crescent City is the album’s focus on the piano—an instrument central to the festive New Orleans musical tradition. Accordingly, keyboard fans will revel in the dozen hand-picked ivory-ticklers who take turns on the studio bench. Thomas predictably excels on bluesy outings and rollicking, boogie-woogie-derived numbers like “Early in the Morning,” which rumbles along to a Mardi Gras-styled parade rhythm. The jazzier material here generally isn’t among the album’s highlights, but she exceeds expectations on a breath-stopping rendition of Dinah Washington’s “This Bitter Earth,” played with exquisite restraint by New Orleans musical patriarch Ellis Marsalis.

With the help of pianist Henry Butler, Thomas reinvigorates John Fogerty’s “River Is Waiting.” This version, with its rousing background vocals and joyous, African-styled chorus figure, heightens the understated gospel flavor of Fogerty’s original. In addition to its theme of water as a symbolic source of regeneration, the rising and falling “Underground Stream” is a well-timed shout-out for the joining of hands. (“…Like everyone who plays a part/ In lifting up this whole creation/ There’s a hidden vein of water/ Steady running deep, ever flowing secretly/ Just to make the ground green/ There’s an underground stream…”)

Accompanied by Randy Newman on his own uncharacteristically inspirational “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” Thomas offers the album’s most moving post-Katrina meditation. In the lyric—which Thomas quietly makes her own—hope and desolation poignantly intertwine. (“Broken windows and empty hallways/ A pale, dead moon in the sky streaked with gray/ Human kindness is overflowing/ And I think it’s going to rain today.”)

Thomas falters, though, on the Burt Bacharach-penned “What Can I Do,” a mismatch that perhaps explains why Thomas failed to achieve the commercial success of ‘60s peers like Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick. Her strengths do not include the pert execution required for the spray-starched melodies of Bacharach, who found his perfect foil in Warwick’s deliberate diction. Conversely, Thomas routinely sacrifices perfection for feel, resulting in numerous off-key moments but no lack of that intangible quantity known as soul. Amid a young crop of female singers who consider technique and flash to be the highest virtues, Thomas’s no-frills delivery on Simply Grand is, while not consistently grand, always superbly simple. 

Audio Clips

"Early in the Morning"

"If I Had Any Sense, I'd Go Back Home"

"River is Waiting"

"Too Much Thinking"