File Irma Thomas’s new Simply Grand under “Why didn’t I think of this?” Pair the New Orleans vocal icon/national treasure with great pianists and top-shelf songs; it’s like that Guinness ad: “Brilliant!” What could be more New Orleans than Irma Thomas and a piano? Thomas sets her course by opening with John Fogerty’s “River Is Waiting,” which she infuses with all the soul and resignation of the Staples family singing in church. She never breaks a sweat as she ranges comfortably over everything from tuxedo-and-evening-dress tracks like David Torkanowsky’s “What Can I Do” to the lowdown, muddy French Quarter backstreets with Dr. John on Rose Marie McCoy’s “If I Had Any Sense I’d Go Back Home.” The sheer breadth of the material, from Jon Cleary’s funky old-school “Too Much Thinking” to the almost classical sound of Ellis Marsalis’s take on “This Bitter Earth,” makes Simply Grand one of 2008’s great blues records. It’s stellar, done with complete class and taste, but Thomas and producer Scott Billington wisely hold Marcia Ball’s workout on Don Nix’s “Same Old Blues” and a transcendent meeting with Randy Newman on his “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” to close out this magnum opus of a piano/singer record.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2008.