Irma Thomas: Wish Someone Would Care (180g) [ACE]

Why you'll love it

Kent Soul has Irma Thomas's 1964 Imperial album back on 180g vinyl, with an inner sleeve interview where she talks to writer Garth Cartwright about her early career. The title track was her biggest national hit, and her "Time Is On My Side" came out the same year the Rolling Stones made it famous.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Inner sleeve with an interview of Irma Thomas by Garth Cartwright
• Kent Soul reissue (cat# HIQLP157)
• The original twelve-track running order

About the album

Irma Thomas grew up in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, sang in a Baptist church choir and was waiting tables in New Orleans when bandleader Tommy Ridgley heard her and helped her get a record deal. On Minit she worked with Allen Toussaint on "It's Raining" and "Ruler of My Heart" (which Otis Redding turned into "Pain in My Heart"), and when Imperial bought Minit in 1963 the hits kept coming. This album, her first for Imperial, is the record of that run.

The title track is a slow, pleading ballad she sings as if her life depends on it, and it became her biggest national hit. "Time Is On My Side" gets the soulful reading the Stones went on to follow, "Break-A-Way" is the Jackie DeShannon and Sharon Sheeley song later covered by Tracey Ullman, and "I Need Your Love So Bad" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love" show how easily she moved between soul and blues. She finally won a Grammy in 2007, more than forty years later, which proves good things come to those who wait, though perhaps not quite that long.

Tracklist

Listen

On Kent Soul (cat# HIQLP157), a reissue of the 1964 album.