Product Description
GALACTIC WITH IRMA THOMAS - AUDIENCE WITH THE QUEEN
RELEASED APRIL 25, 2025, ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
Galactic with Irma Thomas. The Crescent City's chameleonic funk-rock-pop veterans Galactic reunite with the "Soul Queen of New Orleans" Irma Thomas for a full album of new music on Audience With the Queen, an uplifting joint-effort that shines new light on the Grammy-winning singer's timeless sound. Now 84, Thomas has contributed era-defining hits to New Orleans' R&B "Golden Age," earned worldwide acclaim for her blues masterpiece After the Rain and remains among the city's most celebrated gospel singers. With Galactic at her side across 8 high-energy, groove-laced originals and a dazzling revamp of Nancy Wilson's "How Glad I Am," Thomas sounds more vibrant than ever. This unique full-length LP featuring two of New Orleans' most beloved music acts is a must-have for fans of any genre.
GALACTIC & IRMA THOMAS
Audience With The Queen
Tchuop-Zilla Records
Irma Thomas. Another shining example of how living a life pouring one’s heart out through soul and blues music becomes an elixir for youthful vitality. When I saw Thomas perform at the 1998 King Biscuit Blues Festival in a trio with Marcia Ball and Tracy Nelson, I was amazed at how beautifully the 57-year-old lady sang. Here at 83, she bowls me over from the beginning of Audience With The Queen to its end. Thomas may sing in a slightly lower register, but her voice still hits with burnished, impactful soul. The undisputed Soul Queen of New Orleans presents herself full of gumption, and at perhaps her feistiest yet.
Audience With The Queen features Galactic; sax and harmonica player Ben Ellman, bassist Rob Mercurio, drummer Stanton Moore, guitarist Jeff Raines, keyboardist Rich Vogel, and vocalists Anjelika ‘Jelly’ Joseph and Josh Cagler. They play not as the jam band kings of New Orleans that they are, but as a group of incredible musicians that understand exactly how Irma Thomas should, and can, be presented as a contemporary voice of art, and stance.
Emotionally, the album touches on racism, togetherness, gratitude, and hope, the themes disparate but tightly connected. Musically, Thomas and Galactic goad each other through magnificent performances of a slate of songs written by the members of Galactic, but tailor made for the Queen.
“How Glad I Am” opens the album as if a gospel dream in a Broadway musical set in the French Quarter. “Where I Belong” then bursts with sunny, old-school R&B, the autobiographical song rich in gratitude for a life of singing songs. “Love Is Gonna Find A Way Again” drops into a thick blues mid-tempo in beat but upbeat in ideal.
On “Lady Liberty,” Thomas jumps into a rant that rattles, a Black woman with class pissed off, but with threads of optimism, the ramped-up, funky music as undeniable as the words. Audience With The Queen is an album that honors the past and pushes the door wide open for the future of this kind of timeless music; music that can make a difference while it entertains.
– Tom Clarke