Introduction

GEE WHIZ (1961)
1) Gee Whiz; 2) Dance With Me; 3) A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening; 4) Your Love Indeed; 5) Fools Fall In Love; 6) To The Aisle; 7) The Masquerade Is Over; 8) A Love Of My Own; 9) Promises; 10) It Ain't Me; 11) For You; 12) The Love We Shared.
On one hand, this was straightforward nepotism in action: the main reason why we got to hear Carla Thomas' voice is that father Rufus wielded enough influence to promote her as a serious act, first as part of an attractive father/daughter duet, then as a solo performer in her own right. On the other hand, who cares as long as there actually was something serious to promote? Carla had the looks, the voice, the charisma, and even a certain amount of composing talent — at the very least, the song that made her a star was always credited to Carla herself and nobody else.
Not that ʽGee Whizʼ is some sort of outstanding masterpiece, but it helps to contrast it with the other ʽGee Whizʼ, a soft teen-pop number done by The Innocents that very same year — just to remember how passionately wild this Carla Thomas vocal would have sounded back then on the radio, next to the precious china of the vocal harmonies by a bunch of sweet, cuddly white boys. The right word would probably be juicy — she's got that slightly raspy, deep, thick coating on her vocal cords, neither like the blues mamas of the day nor like the jazz crooners, but much more in line with sweet-hot teenage romance, like a blueprint for the soon-to-be typical female voice of Motown or Phil Spector's girl groups (Ronnie Spector is probably the closest one in timbre). Back in 1961, she was probably a unique presence on the Atlantic label — their other performers were either too soft (Barbara Lewis) or too hard (Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker), so there was nobody like Carla to get that teenage blood boiled to the proper temperature.
Throw in some teenage slang (the title of the song), some passionate orchestration for the song's waltzy tempo, and an intentionally seductive tone in every detail, and there's little wonder why ʽGee Whizʼ became such a success. The problem, as always, was with following it up: Carla was immediately set up for a full LP of material that she simply did not have — and so the majority of the tunes here are covers, most of which just sound like ʽGee Whizʼ, but are less interesting, e.g. ʽYour Love Indeedʼ by father Rufus, a very similar waltz but without any prominent lyrical/vocal hooks. She performs everything with honor — the fast-paced cover of The Drifters' ʽFools Fall In Loveʼ is every bit as fun as the original — but the arrangements are generic and monotonous, and even Carla's vocals eventually become a bit grating.
Her own songwriting is further represented on the second side of the album, where it turns out that the girl is actually far more somber than ʽGee Whizʼ would suggest: ʽA Love Of My Ownʼ has her complaining about being unable to score, ʽIt Ain't Meʼ lets us know that even when she does score, she still ends up cheated, and only ʽFor Youʼ reinstates some hope that everything might eventually end up fine (but might also not). None of these songs stray too far away from the Fifties Progression or other clichés of the era, though, so Carla's vocal timbre is pretty much the only reason why they might still be worth a listen. And, as I said, the orchestrated arrange­ments are all typical of the era — the first side ends with an orchestral florish concluding ʽTo The Aisleʼ, and then the second side opens with precisely the same florish for ʽThe Masquerade Is Overʼ, which sounds fairly comical in the digital age when you no longer have the benefit of a slight table-turning pause.
Ultimately, this is skippable — and you can always have ʽGee Whizʼ by itself on the unexpen­dable Atlantic Rhythm'n'Blues compilation — but it does signal the arrival of a substantial talent, and it would be fairly easy for a fool to fall in love with the sound of that lovely voice even if it were made to sing twelve variations on the theme of ʽThe Itsy Bitsy Spiderʼ. Not that the record executives were too happy about nurturing and promoting that talent at first — she did not get her second chance at an LP until four years later, and in the meantime, was occupied by such odd cash-ins as 1963's ʽGee Whiz, It's Christmasʼ (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the original ʽGee Whizʼ, but merely reflects the record industry's treatment of record buyers as trai­nable Pavlov dogs).
COMFORT ME (1965)
1) Comfort Me; 2) No Time To Lose; 3) Yes, I'm Ready; 4) A Lover's Concerto; 5) I'm For You; 6) What The World Needs Now; 7) Let It Be Me; 8) A Woman's Love; 9) Will You Love Me Tomorrow; 10) Forever; 11) Move On Drifter; 12) Another Night Without My Man.
Ah, the good old cover art of understatement. Is it at all possible to resist upon seeing such a beautiful lady in such a suggestive pose, with the words COMFORT ME looming large against her well-coiffed hairdo? That finger alone would be worth at least ten bucks in 1965, and then, as an added bonus, you get twelve pieces of music that you can take or leave — most importantly, you'll always have Paris, er, I mean, that album sleeve. Just hang it on the wall, and...
...okay, okay, so we are here to talk strictly about the music, but truth is, I am not sure what to say. A lot of things happened in between 1961 and 1965, but you really wouldn't know if you had to judge by a comparison of Carla Thomas' first and second LP: these here are twelve more cases of tender balladry and soft R'n'B grooving, all of it pretty (because of Carla) and solid (because of the Stax backing team), but none of it particularly memorable. Interestingly enough, a lot of the songs feature Steve Cropper of Booker T. & The MG's as chief or co-writer, but it's not as if the man is really working his head off to provide Carla with genius hits: stuff like ʽA Woman's Loveʼ is based around the same old chord progressions, and on the whole, I think, Cropper got engaged in this simply to make a little bit of money in case the record sold well.
Problem is, it did not, and neither did any of the singles — they all stalled somewhere around No. 70 to No. 90 on the Billboard charts, not even remotely close to the impact of ʽGee Whizʼ, and it is easy to see why. As an energetic, groove-centered performer, Carla Thomas does not qualify: the «hottest» it gets is on songs like ʽNo Time To Loseʼ, which is basically just a pleading soul num­ber with a bit of vocal aggression mixed in — nice, but tepid and third-rate. As a balladeer, she had teenage appeal with ʽGee Whizʼ, but it is not easy for her to make a fully credible tran­sition into the mature adult stage: she does not have the proper vocal strength to turn ʽComfort Meʼ into anything more than pleasant background muzak.
The record also suffers from too little sonic diversity: when songs as substantially distant as ʽLet It Be Meʼ and ʽWill You Love Me Tomorrowʼ get pretty much the same jumpy, brass-heavy ar­rangements, you begin to seriously wonder if the arrangers and producers actually gave a damn about what they were doing, or, perhaps, they'd already settled upon the album cover and thought that it absolutely did not matter what they put under it. The cover of ʽWill You Love Me Tomor­rowʼ is particularly disappointing, but then, to be honest, nobody really did it full justice until Carole King took the lead vocal herself.
That said, the album is still fully recommendable to all fans of the Stax sound — just do not expect it to rage and rave, everything here is in the soft variety. Soft electric guitars, caressing brass riffs, soft gospel backing vocals, soft raspy-silky lead singer, the works. No highlights.
CARLA (1966)
1) B-A-B-Y; 2) Red Rooster; 3) Let Me Be Good To You; 4) I Got You, Boy; 5) Baby What You Want Me To Do / For Your Love; 6) What Have You Got To Offer Me; 7) I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry; 8) I Fall To Pieces; 9) You Don't Have To Say You Love Me; 10) Fate; 11) Looking Back.
I do not know exactly at what point the moniker «Queen of Soul» was invented for Carla — I would guess around the time when she began singing duets with Otis Redding, so that he could be King, and she could be his Queen, and they could be Heroes just for one day, or, more preci­sely, for the period of time directly preceding December 10, 1967, because with the King gone, who'd really have any solid interest in the Queen?
But the good news is that at last, with new, louder and harder brands of R&B, soul, and funk be­ginning to take shape in the post-British Invasion period, even a Carla Thomas LP, on the whole, becomes more exciting. This one was based around two hit singles: ʽLet Me Be Good To Youʼ, a bouncy soul-pop number whose leapfrog bass line was every bit as important as its lead vocal, and ʽB-A-B-Yʼ, an even more bouncy soul-pop number whose backing vocals were every bit as important as its lead vocal (Carla /moaning and groaning/: "baaaybeee..." — Auxiliary Female Robots Built For Pleasure /faking amazement and excitement/: "BABY?"). Both hits were co-written by David Porter and Isaac Hayes, meaning that Carla was indeed transferred to Atlantic's top list of priorities, and both indicated that they wanted her to move on to a more rhythmic, sexy, seductive, bubbly-pop direction — something for which she was certainly vocally endowed, but probably not born specifically.
She does signal a readiness to expand in other directions as well — the blues, for instance, step­ping forward with a cover of ʽLittle Red Roosterʼ that she probably inherited from Sam Cooke, and a cover of Jimmy Reed's ʽBaby What You Want Me To Doʼ that is, for some reason, integ­rated with a slow sentimental waltz tune (ʽFor Your Loveʼ) in a somewhat questionable artistic decision (not sure Jimmy would have approved). Or country: ʽI'm So Lonesome I Could Cryʼ is seriously softened up compared to Hank Williams, but does retain a bit of lonesomeness. And she still continues to write a few of her own songs — ʽI Got You Boyʼ is probably the best of these, but Isaac Hayes still wrote catchier ones for her, so why bother?
On the whole, though, the album still offers no evidence whatsoever that Carla Thomas could be a serious proposition in LP terms — ʽB-A-B-Yʼ is a perfectly endearing bubblegum-soul single for 1966, and the rest of the album is more listenable than the previous two because of the ele­ment of diversity and (occasionally) added R&B groove power, but for bubblegum-soul, your best bet would still be on The Supremes, and for R&B groove power... well, considering that Aretha had not properly arrived yet, maybe Martha & The Vandellas on the female side? Come to think of it, Atlantic sure suffered a lot from male chauvinism compared to Motown at the time. Not that it makes any difference — Carla Thomas is simply not a very viable proposition when it comes to power aspects; ʽGee Whizʼ and ʽB-A-B-Yʼ are far more to her liking.
THE QUEEN ALONE (1967)
1) Any Day Now; 2) Stop Thief; 3) I Take It To My Baby; 4) I Want To Be Your Baby; 5) Something Good (Is Going To Happen To You); 6) When Tomorrow Comes; 7) I'll Always Have Faith In You; 8) All I See Is You; 9) Unchanging Love; 10) Give Me Enough (To Keep Me Going); 11) Lie To Keep Me From Crying.
The meaning of the title is that Otis Redding and Carla had only just recently completed a duets album called King & Queen, where Carla's role was somewhat more supportive, so it was only fair to give her an autonomous chance — while making the «queen» moniker stick, particularly since Aretha was only on the verge of her national breakthrough, and the proverbial crown was pretty much up for grabs, whoever claimed it first.
As usual, nothing particularly outstanding is going on, but the record is a bit more consistent and fun than Carla, the real good news being that the Porter/Hayes duo are now contributing a good half of the songs instead of just two, as it used to be. Unsurprisingly, this half is the best half of all, with playful grooves, hooky choruses, and plenty of charming entertainment value, most of it due to the composers rather than the players and the singers. ʽStop Thiefʼ ("give me back my heart") features smart usage of the cleptomaniac metaphor; ʽI Take It To My Babyʼ uses an oddly nagging cowbell to bring the message home; ʽSomething Goodʼ recycles the lead-vs.-backing vocals trick previously used on ʽB-A-B-Yʼ to raise the seductiveness of the tune above average level; ʽWhen Tomorrow Comesʼ rides a slightly modified version of the ʽMy Girlʼ bass riff that gives this love ballad a funky edge; and only the straightforward waltz ʽUnchanging Loveʼ looks like it took about two minutes to piece together, though Carla still gives it her best.
The non-Porter/Hayes songs tend to drift into schmaltz, sometimes of a pretty variety (ʽGive Me Enoughʼ, with gorgeous falsetto harmonies), sometimes of a boring one (ʽAll I See Is Youʼ). In­terestingly, neither of these tunes, nor the even schmaltzier ʽAny Day Nowʼ, a strings-heavy Bacharach cover, were chosen as the singles — the first single was ʽSomething Goodʼ, clearly attesting to the fact that Atlantic/Stax were trying to repeat the success of ʽB-A-B-Yʼ; unfortu­nately, the success proved to be unrepeatable, with R&B audiences growing less and less interes­ted in such «bubblegummy» stuff.
The album was, nevertheless, fortunate enough to be oficially remastered and released in an ex­panded CD package on its 40th jubilee, with five bonus tracks that seem to have been outtakes (I do not see them listed as contemporary singles or anything), including a minor pop gem called ʽMe And My Clockʼ and more of the same ordinary, but listenable R&B grooves. All in all, very disappointing for a true «queen-level» album (the real queen was just minutes away from show­ing the true meaning of R&B royalty), but a solid treat for any solid fan of conventional mid-Sixties R&B.
MEMPHIS QUEEN (1969)
1) I Like What You're Doing (To Me); 2) I Play For Keeps; 3) Don't Say No More; 4) More Man Than I Ever Had; 5) I've Fallen In Love With You; 6) He's Beating Your Time; 7) Unyielding; 8) Strung Out; 9) How Can You Throw My Love Away; 10) Guide Me Well; 11) Precious Memories; 12) Where Do I Go.
The difference between Queen Alone and Memphis Queen, other than the switch from «alone» (as in «I don't need Otis Redding by my side to prove that royal status... or do I?») to «Memphis» (as in «assertion of Southern identity couldn't hurt those sales... or could it?»), is that this 1969 record is a little less poppy and generally goes for denser and harsher arrangements, funkier grooves, and, overall, more of that swampy soulful black magic. Loud brass, thick syncopated bass, gospel backing vocals, the works. Classy Stax sound and all — problem is, by 1969 we were already living in the world of Aretha Franklin, and in this world, the need for Carla Thomas is almost non-existent.
Unless she or her collaborators could contribute some top-level songwriting, that is; but in this respect, Memphis Queen is no better or worse than a thousand other deep (or not so deep) soul records released the same year. Carla herself writes only two songs, the Motown-ish pop-rocker ʽDon't Say No Moreʼ and the lush ballad ʽI've Fallen In Love With Youʼ, and both are perfectly stereotypical. Even worse, the Hayes/Porter well of goodies has clearly run dry as well — with Hayes now busy full time with his own solo career, the only contribution is ʽGuide Me Wellʼ, a slow waltz whose first half is merely recited rather than sung by the lady, and everything about which, including the arrangement, could have been created in a matter of five minutes by any seasoned professional.
Arguably the finest court songwriter of the bunch here is Bettye Crutcher, who contributes ʽI Like What You're Doing (To Me)ʼ, the poppiest and catchiest song of the whole bunch (sounds not unlike early Christine McVie before she learned to properly sharpen those hooks), and the funk-pop anthem ʽMore Man Than I've Ever Hadʼ, where the gentle and romantic Carla Thomas is beginning to learn the basics of lusty, carnal music — still not quite up to the standards of Bessie Smith, but she does make the transition to a deeper, rougher range in order to explain how her man keeps her satisfied. It's fun, but, unfortunately, not very believable from a performer whose brightest moment still remains ʽGee Whizʼ, a starry-eyed and purely innocent account of teenage love — the teenager may have grown up, but not into a sex-crazed lady who'd be ready to eat you alive at a moment's notice. Nice try, though.
The record remains a good example of classic 1969-era Stax: everybody is tight, brass and string parts gel perfectly, and there is even some fine wah-wah funk playing on a few of the numbers (ʽUnyieldingʼ), so there are no special reasons to put it down. But it did not succeed in making Carla Thomas more relevant and star-powered in the new era of black music, and the idea of putting out the slow, barely noticeable ʽGuide Me Wellʼ as the lead single only meant that no­body really gave a damn any more.
LOVE MEANS... (1971)
1) Didn't We; 2) Are You Sure; 3) What Is Love; 4) Daughter, You're Still Your Daddy's Child; 5) Love Means You Never Have To Say You're Sorry; 6) You've Got A Cushion To Fall On; 7) Il Est Plus Doux Que; 8) Cherish; 9) I Wake Up Wanting You.
Well, it's nice to know that Carla Thomas was a major fan of Love Story, though in the grand scheme of things it is probably not a very significant detail. It is less nice to know that her first and only album in the Seventies pretty much gave up on harsh funky grooves altogether, as she decided to comfortably settle in the green fields of lush, orchestrated, sentimental pop music — not too surprising, though, considering she'd started out in that vein anyway, and always felt more comfortable with sweet lyrical tenderness than with the get-up-and-fight vibe. The problem is, she was still on Stax, and it is a bit strange to see the muscular talents of the MG's and other Stax session musicians go to waste on this kind of material.
Surprisingly, the title track, despite its title, is exactly the one song on here that still gets by on groove power — nothing particularly unusual about the groove, a simple blues bassline, but it sets a gritty tone for all the subsequent brass and orchestral interludes and adds a nice touch of ambiguity to the message. Apparently, something about love and its nature was bugging Carla at the time — this is one of only two songs that she herself (co-)wrote for the album, the other one being ʽWhat Is Love?ʼ, a much less interesting pop tune, but with a decent vocal build-up to the chorus at least. However, she does get solid songwriting help from her brother Marvell, who also contributes the album's lengthiest, quasi-epic number — the conventionally heartbreaking family relation tale ʽDaughter, You're Still Your Daddy's Childʼ, culminating in a two-minute ecstatic coda where Carla is trying to steer the entire band into ripping it up; unfortunately, this is also precise­ly where you remember that Carla Thomas is no Aretha Franklin, and I find it hard to get caught up in the excitement for that reason.
This is all sweet and at least tolerable, but the album also offers some inexcusable crassness: Tony Hester's ʽIl Est Plus Doux Queʼ, with quasi-French sentimentality and poorly pronounced French phrasing sprinkled all over the tune, is unbearable, and so is the awful B-side ʽYou've Got A Cushion To Fall Onʼ (you thought ʽStand By Your Manʼ was, um, questionable? Here's a sample of the lyrics to this one: "Good evening, dear, do you feel okay? / How are things on the job today? / Sit right down and kick off your shoes / Supper will be ready in a minute or two / I can tell your promotion didn't go through / And I can see it got you feeling sad and blue... / ...you've got a cushion to fall on / you've got me, I'm in your corner". From the We Three song­writing team, welcome to the progressive Seventies). In an era when Afro-American music, male and female, generally strove to expand, break out, and assert its individuality, this kind of style was clearly regressive, if not straightahead reactionary.
In any case, be it the lack of chart success or a personal feeling of «not belonging» to this new age of music-making, Love Means... turned out to be the last full-fledged musical effort from «The Queen of Soul»: by 1972, Carla had pretty much retired from music (although she conti­nued to give occasional performances and even mini-tours well into the 2000s). As such, it re­mains the last testament to a pleasant, but mediocre talent that was, unfortunately, never provided with the proper conditions to mature into anything above mediocre. Essentially, I would conclude that the Carla / Stax match was a mismatch from the very beginning — she might have thrived as a pop star, perhaps even an art-pop one if things had gone right, but trying to place her some place in between lush pop star and fiery R&B diva just made her fall through the cracks alto­gether.
ADDENDA
LIVE AT THE BOHEMIAN CAVERNS (1967; 2007)
1) Introduction (Al Bell); 2) You're Gonna Hear From Me; 3) Medley: Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah / A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening / It's A Lovely Day Today / On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever); 4) Mas Que Nada; 5) Gee Whiz; 6) Evenin'; 7) A Lot Of Livin' To Do; 8) B-A-B-Y; 9) Many, Many Thanks; 10) Never Be True; 11) Rufus Dialogue No. 1; 12) Fine And Mellow; 13) Did You Ever Love A Woman; 14) Rufus Dialogue No. 2; 15) The Dog.
Queen of Soul or not, apparently, Carla's status back in the day did not make her eligible for a live album. Her first chance at this arrived as late as 2001, with Live In Memphis featuring a nearly 60-year old performer singing ʽGee Whizʼ with the same teenage abandonment with which an old, bald, and conservatively ribald Mike Love launches into ʽSurfin' U.S.A.ʼ in the 21st cen­tury — but I do not have the complete album on hand, and I think I might be forgiven for by­passing it altogether and briefly concentrating, instead, on this fun archive release that unearthes a well-recorded show, played on May 25, 1967 at the Bohemian Caverns in Washington, DC. It was still a pretty good time for Carla — Aretha Franklin's star had only just begun to shine, and she could still wield that «Queen of Soul» title with some limited credibility. To make matters even more solidly royal, father Rufus also makes an appearance, sealing the deal with a small after-set of two songs, one groove, two long rants, and a number of sleazy, sexist jokes.
Three things speak in favor of the recording. One, the quality — it is always nice to have a small-scale, intimate club show recorded on a professional level, with the close rapport between the singer and an appreciative audience well audible. Two, the backing band — a batch of R&B and jazz professionals here, with a still little-known young man called Donny Hathaway sitting at the piano and distinguishing himself as a fine, lyrical player in his own right. And three, the setlist itself, which is anything but predictable, and has Carla explore a whole range of styles: in addi­tion to some of her biggest hits (ʽGee Whizʼ, ʽB-A-B-Yʼ), she sings some soul, some jazz, some blues, some pop standards, and even some Latin stuff. This is just Carla Thomas, yes, and there is nothing exceptional, but it's all done with style and grace, and the element of diversity is quite pleasing. A minor quibble is the lack of backing vocalists (which pretty much annuls the main hook of ʽB-A-B-Yʼ), but the supportive cheers and whoops of the audience sometimes make up for that anyway.
Good as she is, though, once father Rufus gets to replace her on that stage, it becomes painfully clear how much nepotism was involved in Carla's career — the father has ten times more charm, power, and brute subtlety than the daughter, as he even manages to reinvent Billie Holiday's ʽFine And Mellowʼ for his own purposes, and proves himself the ultimate master of contrastive vocal dynamics: as supportive as the listeners were to Carla, it takes Rufus to really shake them up, and by the time that he gets to his trademark ʽThe Dogʼ groove, everybody has been wound up and rejuvenated. Not that there's anything criminal or immoral in that — just stating the obvious: Rufus Thomas was a great R&B / blues howler, while Carla was an elegant, pleasant mediocrity at best. Very nice lady, though, and not entirely untalented — it's just that they never managed to find a properly nurturing soil for these talents.

THE CHANTAYS