Irma Thomas: Something Good - The Muscle Shoals Sessions (1990)

Irma Thomas' brief liaison with Chess in 1967 saw her, like labelmates Laura Lee and Etta James, record in Muscle Shoals' Fame studios to tap into the southern/deep soul grooves that were one of the hottest tickets in soul music at the time. Commercially, these sessions weren't a success, though they were solid soul performances paced by Irma’s habitual excellent, committed vocals. Thomas recorded over a dozen tracks while backed by seasoned in-house rhythm and horn sections, plus Spooner Oldham on keyboards. Of the tracks she recorded, Chess released only three 45s. The first was a fine, Oliver Sain Jr. written, deep ballad called 'Somewhere Crying', backed by an average uptempo track, ‘Cheater Man’, written by Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn. It was, however, the next single that crowned Irma's Chess period, ‘A Woman Will Do Wrong’, a touching and memorable soul ballad, ranging from whispery to screamy and written by Paul Kelly and Clarence Reid. For some strange reason, none of these singles had much success, but her third, a reading of Redding's ‘Good to Me,’ was a minor R&B chart entry in 1968. Unimpressed - and despite some fine unreleased material, like Otis' ‘I've Been Loving You Too Long’ and ‘Security’ and and Goffin & King’s ‘Yours Until Tomorrow’- Chess decided Thomas was a poor seller and scrapped plans to release an LP by her. That none of Irma's Muscle Shoals releases connected with the public is puzzling (lack of marketing was only part of the problem). Even worse, most of her work for the label went unissued for over 20 years. The combination of her mature, soul-saturated delivery, coupled with a raw vocal grittiness, and the tight, could-only-happen-in-Mussle Shoals perfection of the band made for some of Irma Thomas' most satisfying performances. As she stated, even though the band may not have been from New Orleans, it delivered its own elegant, yet understated, funk and soul bravado to the songs, allowing Irma to connect with the material in a way most singers can only dream about. This is a must if you're an Irma Thomas fan, with 14 tracks that include several Chess singles and nine songs recorded for that album which was never released. http://www.artistdirect.com/, http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.answers.com/, http://www.soulexpress.net/

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