Johnette Downing and Scott Billington pen the story of New Orleans legend, Irma Thomas

by Ingrid Jensen

Music

September 23, 2026

3:55 PM

Irma Thomas’s voice is the stuff of legend, and her work with Allen Toussaint at the independent label Minit Records is synonymous with New Orleans’s R&B and soul music of the 1960s. The length of Thomas’s career, which spans more than six decades, has resulted in multiple generations having the good fortune to enjoy her music as the soundtrack of their lives. Songs such as “It’s Raining,” “Time is On My Side,” and “Backwater Blues,” have become classics.

Born in Ponchatoula, in 1941, Thomas began auditioning for record labels in her early teens. By the time she was eighteen, she had released the single, “Don’t Mess with My Man,” which charted at number 22 on the Billboard R&B charts. In 2007, her post-Katrina album After the Rain won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. 

Irma Thomas: Soul Queen of New Orleans, to be released on November 16, is the first biography to be published on this living legend. Written by the husband-and-wife team Johnette Downing and Scott Billington in close collaboration with Thomas herself, the book will be released by the University Press of Mississippi in November. As part of the university’s American Made Music series, it will provide a vital, comprehensive look at Thomas’s life.  

Known as the “Pied Piper of Louisiana Music Traditions” and recognized as the recipient of the New Orleans Tourism and Cultural Foundation’s 2026 Literary Arts and Humanities Award, Downing has dedicated her career as a writer and musician to preserving the history of Louisiana music, ensuring that these precious traditions reach younger generations. Billington (also a music educator) has spent decades as Thomas’s producer, working closely with her on projects including the Grammy-winning After the Rain. 

Comprising 288 pages, the biography charts Thomas’s life from her rural upbringing to her entrance into the music industry, first big hits, a move to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, and her subsequent journey back to New Orleans, where she lives to this day. A must-read for rhythm and blues and soul music aficionados, you can pre-order paperback or collectible hardback copies of the biography directly from the University Press of Mississippi at upress.state.ms.us.