Get the latest gossip

Soul icon Irma Thomas on the Stones, segregation and survival: ‘Restaurants refused to serve us – we lived on sardines and crackers’

She has endured racism, industry machinations and Hurricane Katrina across her seven decades in music. Now with a new album, and an unlikely boost from Black Mirror, the 84-year-old ‘Soul Queen of New Orleans’ is hitting new heights

Although Thomas, 84, has enjoyed hit records, Grammy awards, international tours, critical praise and the loyal devotion of her home city, she has never experienced the largesse that comes with sustained stardom. Fronting Ridgley’s band, Thomas worked one-nighters across the south and the eastern seaboard, playing the chitlin’ circuit (the name given to a loose network of Black-owned clubs) and white college fraternity parties. My audience with the queen is up: Thomas wants to have lunch with Emile, read the Bible, watch a gameshow and prepare for headlining the French Quarter festival the next day, performing with a voice that Raitt says is still as “beautiful, sultry and powerful as it was on her first records”.

Get the Android app