Streetcar: Irma on Stage

Two great moments

That night during this past Jazz Fest when the Rolling Stones performed, and Mick Jagger called Irma Thomas to the stage should be remembered as one of the all-time special moments in the city’s music history.

It also brought to my mind another night and another stage nearly 40 years earlier, in 1984, when Thomas was escorted to a stage at the New Orleans World’s Fair to commemorate a special moment.

At the Jazz Fest, Thomas and Jagger, with the Stones backing them, held hands as they sang, while the crowd cheered “Time is on My Side,” the moody R&B hit, that Thomas had recorded in 1964. Way across the ocean the Stones had heard the song and decided to do it themselves.

It went well.

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Their version became the group’s first recording to reach number one on the pop charts in the United States. The song made the Rolling Stones famous over in the colonies.

In later years, Thomas would confess that she was originally annoyed by the Stones’ version because audiences thought she had taken the song from them. In time it would be understood that Irma came first and, besides, there is nothing wrong with being associated with the most famous existing rock band of all times.

Surprisingly, that night at the Jazz Fest was the first time that the two musical forces sang the song together.

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By contrast, in November 1984 when Thomas arrived on the stage at the World’s Fair, the mood was melancholy. It was the closing night of the fair that had lasted six months but that had been on the city’s mindset for years as it developed. By that night the verdict was clear: our World’s Fair had been a financial failure, but locals loved it.

Because of budget issues the closing ceremony had been scaled down yet what emerged, though trimmed by necessity, created a priceless moment.

Earlier that year the Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles. The nation watched on a Sunday Night when the final pageantry was broadcast to a global audience. An unforgettable moment was when hundreds of athletes were gathered on the field, swaying and holding candles while singing in unison, to Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long.” It was the perfect song; slightly sad, but upbeat as the flickering candles cast light toward the future.

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Well, my friends, the time has come
To raise the roof and have some fun
Throw away the work to be done
Let the music play on

In New Orleans, that ceremony would influence the planners of the World’s Fair’s closing moments. At the amphitheater which had been constructed with a back view of the river, a group of the Fair’s staff workers assembled on stage. Most invited politicians shunned the evening but not Lindy Boggs the good-hearted Congresswoman from New Orleans. The fair’s mascot, Seymore D. Fair, a jolly cartoonish pelican who wore a matching blue coat with tails, a top hat with a classy feather in the crown, plus spats, also joined the party. And then there was Irma Thomas, “the Soul Queen of New Orleans” and one of the city’s most beloved performers.

For its closing moments the fair used a recording of “All Night Long.” Those on stage swayed as they sang. Upfront were Boggs, Seymour, and Irma, their arms linked. The audience weeped at what would be the closing memory of the Exhibition.

One day in the future it would be written that Irma Thomas, during the course of her career, would have held hands and sang on stages with two superstars, Mick Jagger and Seymore D. Fair.

Clearly, time had been on her side.

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