Soul Strutter: Carla Thomas

Carla Thomas, 'The Queen Of Memphis Soul', (21 Dec 1942) celebrates her 80th birthday today. She is one of three children of Rufus Thomas. Her sister Vaneese is also a singer and her brother Marvell is a keyboardist/producer. She was a member of WDIA Radio's Teen Town singers at the age of ten, a station her father was a DJ on.

Her first recording was "Cause I Love You" in 1960 with her father, on the fledgling Satellite label founded by Jim Stewart who, with his sister Estelle Axton, would soon rename the legendary Stax label in 1961. The first record was a regional hit which gained the attention of Jerry Wexler of Atlantic records who made a deal with Satellite to distribute their records and have first right of refusal on releases. It was the first recording at the 926 E. McLemore studio which is now the Stax Museum and would be pivotal in Jim Stewart's conversion to R&B music as the label was predominantly a pop and country label prior to this.

Her follow up, and first solo single, "Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)", a song she wrote when she was 16, was released on Atlantic (as were most of her singles until 1965) and it was to become her biggest hit reaching #5 R&B and #10 Hot 100. The closest she came to it was in 1966 with "B-A-B-Y" which got to #14 Hot 100, although she had twenty singles in total in the Hot 100 throughout her career.

After releasing around forty plus singles and seven albums her recording career more or less ended in 1972 after her appearance at WattStax although she did perform live and I've seen a video of her performing as recently as 2017. Ironically, her final single on Stax in 1973 was a version of a Phillip Mitchell song "Love Among People" recorded in 1972 by Billy Durham which is one of her best recordings.

A previously unreleased song "I'll Never Stop Loving You" was later discovered and put out on the 100 Club 12th anniversary single in 1991 and was later available commercial on Ady Croasdell's Horace's label. I 'think' it may have been taken from a Stax album also released in 1991 "Hidden Gems", a CD of all previously unreleased Carla Thomas material.

Another spin on Northern Soul dancefloors was given to "I Play for Keeps" from her 1969 "Memphis Queen" album which was never released as a single until reissued by Kent in 2016 backed with Barbara Lewis "The Stars".

Surprisingly, her whole catalogue is available on Spotify except one single "The Time For Love" / "(I'm Going Back To) Living In The City" from 1970 The same catalogue number had two variants, the previous one and a second which had a Donny Hathaway written song "Never Be True" along with "The Time For Love Is Anytime" (note the difference in title name). So any help with this one would complete the discography of everything she has recorded.

It's a bit odd that they aren't included on "The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 2: 1968-1971" (not complete then is it!), but I did find one of the tracks on a 1994 Carla Thomas CD compilation titled "Sugar".

Albums

1961 - Gee Whiz [Atlantic #8057]

1965 - Comfort Me [Stax #STAX 706]

US #134, R&B #11

1966 - Carla [Stax #STAX 709]

US #130, R&B #7

1967 - The Queen Alone [Stax #S 718]

US #133, R&B #16

1967 - King & Queen (with Otis Redding) [Stax #S 716]

US #36, R&B #5

1969 - Memphis Queen [Stax #STS 2019]

US #151, R&B #26