CARLA THOMAS: 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.
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