Simply The Best (Live At Slim's, San Francisco, CA / 8-30-1990 & 8-31-1990)

. This is Irma Thomas, the undisputed Soul Queen of New Orleans and a long time favourite of mine. I have featured her before so you can see lots of stuff on her if you scroll my FB back a year or so. But now my You Tube search engine has been coming up with some great new material by her. So much stuff that I've had a difficult job choosing just five tracks. The one I'm leading off with here is a great hit for Tina Turner, but I like Irma's version in a slightly lower key better. Her backing group at Slim's in San Francisco provides a great wall of sound too. Plenty of horns, the way you expect a New Orleans band to be. And even her band intro is great!

Irma Thomas Live In Porretta

Irma Thomas live at Porretta Soul Festival in Bologna Italy.This is where she really gets down to about as deep as Deep Soul gets. Utter desperation in fact. A great performance. Just a pity the video cuts off before the audience reacts.

Bridge Over Troubled Water – Irma Thomas and Kyle Roussel of the Preserv...

Irma again with a powerful version of what was probably Simon and Garfunkel's biggest hit.

IRMA THOMAS - "I Needed Somebody"

Irma live in Kentucky with a song which is also an Ann Peebles standard. Both are great versions. Irma edges closer to Deep Soul.

I Can't Help Myself (Honeypie Honeybun)

Irma with what was a huge hit for the Four Tops.You can't really compare a song done by males with the same song done by a female vocalist so I'm going to say that I think these two versions are the best of type each.

Irma Thomas - Another Lonely Heart

This is Irma Thomas off her CD After The Rain which I received recently from the USA. It has a slightly Country style about it. This footage also shows some great pictures of Irma.She recently turned 80 and is still going strong .I saw some footage of a Christmas show she did in 2020 in the St Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter, New Orleans. She looked and sounded great! Only a handful of performers can boast of a six decade career! The 2018 Honorary Doctorate from Tulane University was well deserved.

Irma Thomas & Ry Cooder Backwater Blues

Irma is a very well known and liked personality in New Orleans. She owned a restuarant in the city where she frequently performed for the patrons. However when Katrina hit it was completely destroyed. A gold medal given to her on the occasion of her Emmy award and which had been on display in a glass case was never found. It is still somewhere in the mud left by Katrina. She gave several benefit concerts for victims of Katrina after the storm. Here she sings a song about what it was like when the storm hit, backed by iconic Cuban guitarist Ry Cooder. "I looked down on the house where I used to stay but I couldn't stay there no more....Ir

Irma Thomas - I've been loving you too long

Irma Thomas is one of my absolute favourite singers. As a 16 year old girl she lost her first job, washing dishes in a restuarant, becase the patrons complained about her singing while she worked. In 2018 at the age of 76 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her more than 5 decades of service to music and to the people of New Orleans, her home city, by Tulane University in the city. ( that used to be University of Louisiana.) There is Soul, then there's Deep Soul and then ......there's this Powerhouse Soul from Irma. Enjoy!