Singer Irma Thomas was awarded Soul Queen of New Orleans by the authorities of her birthplace. The fact that her way of singing shows experience and credibility is not a coincidence: she had her first child when she was fourteen, she got married and had another child, and shortly after that she got divorced. A second marriage, which also produced two children also ended, before she reached the age of twenty. When this mother of four began singing songs about life, she knew more than anyone else what she was singing about. In the Pimlico Club, where she worked as a waitress and also coincidently performed, bandleader Tommy Ridgley noticed her and managed to get her a record deal. Her first single, You Can Have My Husband (But Don’t Mess with My Man) was a small hit in de R&B Chart. From 1961 until 1963 she recorded a couple of outstanding singles for the Minit-label, which were all written and produced by Allen Toussaint. In his movie Down by Law Jim Jarmusch saved one of those recordings, the song It’s Raining, from oblivion. Also because of that there was renewed interest for Thomas’ work and in the past years she proved to still deserve the title Soul Queen of New Orleans. Recently her new CD After The Rain was released, which was recorded several months after hurricane Katrina, that destroyed everything she had, including her own club The Lion’s Den.
