Carla Thomas - Memphis Queen 1969

Half recorded in Memphis with the usual stellar Stax crew and half recorded in New York with local session musicians (all overdubbed in Detroit), Memphis Queen finds Thomas and the Stax label in transition. Motown alumnus Don Davis handled production, draping many cuts in large, lush orchestral settings. "I Like What You're Doing (To Me)" was a Top Ten R&B hit, and three other tracks had brief chart runs. In 1997, this was reissued on a single-disc CD that also included her 1971 album Love Means. AMG.

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Carla Thomas - Gee Whiz 1961

Thomas' first album was built around the huge title hit, and also included her follow-up single, "A Love of My Own," which reached the R&B Top 20, although it wasn't nearly as popular as "Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)." The record is far more pop-oriented than the sound for which Stax would become known, with both the material and the arrangements showing substantial influences from pop standards, doo wop, and even (particularly in the songs with backup vocals by the Anita Kerr Singers) Nashville country. That doesn't make it a bad record at all, just not one that listeners familiar with the Stax sound, or even Thomas' later Stax records, might expect. Though Thomas herself wrote some of the songs, about half of the tracks are covers of pop standards ("[I'm Afraid] The Masquerade Is Over") and still-recent rock/R&B hits like the Drifters' "Dance With Me" and "Fools Fall in Love" and the Five Satins' "To the Aisle." Also onboard is a composition by Carla's dad, Rufus Thomas, and a song and a half by famed Memphis producer Chips Moman, who produced five of the tracks. The 2002 CD reissue adds an alternate version of "Promises." AMG.

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Carla Thomas - Carla 1966

Paired with Stax writing whiz-kids Isaac Hayes and David Porter, Thomas had her greatest chart run, beginning with the hit "B-A-B-Y" and continuing with "Let Me Be Good to You." Both of those appear here, alongside evocative slabs of country-soul in covers of Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces." For good measure, Thomas also tries her hand at the blues with covers of Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster" and Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me to Do?" AMG.

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