Earl Thomas

He's performed on bills with Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Ike Turner, B.B. King, Dr. John, Gladys Knight, Robert Cray and Les McCann to name a few. He tours extensively in Europe and the US. He is a successful singer/songwriter He wrote hit songs for Etta James and Solomon Burke. But he'd never been to the alter...until now.

Earl Thomas has now, most definitely, “been to alter,” the Southern term that connotes a person of experience, erudition and worldliness; the evidence is his new recording for JP Bowmann Production Company, Plantation Gospel. The disc's title indicates what's going on: it's an encapsulated crossroads of music from the plantation slavery era. The Tennessee-born, Thomas finally traveled to land of his roots in the fall of this year where, with some help from great players, collaborators and a producer who knew when to intervene and when to stand clear, an album unlike any he'd done before was created.
It's not easy to categorize the collection that Earl Thomas and company have created, but you can call it a roots-based contemporary gospel record and nobody will argue with you. Earl likes to think of it as a modern approach to traditional "Old Negro Spirituals" using the styles (blues, rock, soul, and funk) that have roots in this original American artform.

"I always stayed away from this type of music because of the religious connection" says the northern California based Thomas. "But once I started singing it came as natural as breathing."