New Orleans’ one and only Galactic and the legendary Soul Queen of New Orleans, GRAMMY® Award-winning singer Irma Thomas, have shared the latest single from their upcoming collaborative album. Audience With The Queen. A dazzling revamp of the classic Nancy Wilson original, “How Glad I Am” sees organ peels filtering through a vocal harmony like light through stained glass, leading the melody into an almost country lilt.
“‘How Glad I Am’ has always been one of my all-time favorite tunes,” says Galactic co-founder Ben Ellman, “and after hearing Irma tell Dick Clark on American Bandstand when she was a teenager that she loved Nancy Wilson, we just had to include it. We tried different approaches, but hearing Irma’s voice stripped down when we were rehearsing it steered us into letting her voice drive the whole song.”
“As much as we wanted to avoid cover songs on the album, we thought a true makeover of this song from Irma’s youth would connect,” says Galactic co-founder Robert Mercurio. “Our version has a much darker, yet still uplifting tone to it. As the opening track, it acts as an overture to the album.”
Audience With The Queen arrives Friday, April 11 on Galactic’s own Tchuop-Zilla Records. Pre-orders are available now. The album marks a landmark departure from Galactic’s 10 previous studio LPs, most of which revolved around the band’s core instrumentalists – Ben Ellman (saxophones, harmonica), Robert Mercurio (bass), Stanton Moore (drums), Jeff Raines (guitar) and Rich Vogel (keyboards) – accompanied by a mix of different vocalists. Here, the 84-year-old Thomas’ famously warm, blues-drenched voice retains the spotlight across such brand-new songs as the buoyant “Where I Belong” and fiery first single, “Lady Liberty,” the latter joined by an official music video streaming now on YouTube.
Galactic is currently set to bring their big, bold brand of hot New Orleans funk to fans around the world beginning with a series of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival shows including headline dates their own historic Tipitina’s on April 26 and May 2 as well as an official Festival appearance on May 4. An array of top-billed festival performances follow throughout the summer, including Samois-sur-Seine, France’s world-famous Festival Django Reinhardt (June 28), Navarro, CA’s sold-out Redwood Ramble (July 17-20), and Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, Japan’s legendary Fuji Rock Festival (July 27). Additional dates will be announced. For complete details and ticket availability, please see galacticfunk.com/home/tour-dates.
