Irma Thomas - After the Rain

A rumor circulated after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast at the close of summer in 2005 that Louisiana soul great Irma Thomas was one of the missing. The rumor, fortunately, turned out to be false -- she was gigging at the time in Austin -- but Thomas' New Orleans home was completely destroyed. The shadow of Katrina hangs large over After The Rain, Thomas' first new album in six years, and several of the songs take on an added poignancy because of the tragedy, most tellingly the cover of Arthur Alexander's "In the Middle of It All" which opens this set and a stunning version of the traditional blues spiritual "Another Man Done Gone" with its telling line "another storm has come." It would be easy to call this album Thomas' response to the devastation, and to a great extent it is, but except for "Another Man Done Gone," all of the songs here were chosen for the recording sessions well before Katrina developed. Read More