Carla Thomas’ The Queen Alone was originally released in 1967, right after her album of duets with one of Stax’s leading male soul shouters, Otis Redding, called King and Queen. It’s been re-released four decades later, augmented with five additional previously unreleased tracks as part of the label’s 50th anniversary celebration.

The Queen Alone proves an obvious yet curious title. She IS without Redding or any other lead vocal companion. But she does not isolate The Queen Alone in Stax’s trademark Memphis soul and reaches out into other territories such as Latin rhythms and Burt Bacharach and Dusty Springfield type, almost mainstream, commercial ’60s pop.

She’s also hardly alone in the company of Booker T. & the MGs plus Isaac Hayes, the Memphis Horns and others. These were not only some of the best soul musicians but also the best soul composers of the day, and Alone benefits from its steady program of David Porter / Isaac Hayes tunes plus contributions from Steve Cropper and Booker T. The Queen Alone ascended into the Top 20 R&B Albums chart (#16) and its first single, “I’ll Always Have Faith in You” (co-written by another Stax artist, Eddie Floyd), just missed the R&B Top 10 (#11).

The opening “Any Day Now” was originally co-written by Burt Bacharach for Chuck Jackson, and though it seems like one of Bacharach’s trademark pop meringues, albeit done in soulful Stax style, its chorus sounds the more wise and cautionary note: “Any day now, love will let you down…” A later selection, “All I See is You” had already been a Top 20 Pop single for Dusty Springfield the previous summer and thoroughly sounds like a follow-up to Springfield’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.”

“Take it To My Baby” - written by Hayes, Porter and Cropper - screws those Stax horns and a walking bassline down onto Al Jackson Jr.’s Latin percussion beat. “I Want to Be Your Baby” (Hayes-Porter) comes following, smooth and sticky sweet as syrup, even if the “baby” theme begins to somewhat wear.

One of Thomas’ most enduring and charming ballads, “Give Me Enough (to Keep Me Going)” was written by former Stax Director of Publicity and Community Relations, Deanie Parker; Parker is now President and CEO of Soulsville, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, in Memphis. 

The Queen Alone does not forget the foundational gospel of the blues, pulling “Unchanging Love” straight out of church and concluding with the smoldering “Lie to Keep Me From Crying,” a show-stopping, uncomplicated ballad tinged with country blues and gospel, a powerful march through pain and pride that sounds more like an Otis Redding than a Carla Thomas single.

Another single, “Something Good (Is Going to Happen to You),” made it up to #29 on the R&B chart, and Hayes apparently liked its chugging piano rhythm so much that he repeated the exact same piano and rhythm part years later for “Type Thang,” part of his own live repertoire captured in performance Live at the Sahara Tahoe in 1973.

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