Sometimes it takes a vacation to make you realize how good you’ve got it at home.

Birmingham, Alabama’s City Stages festival seems to be loosely modeled after Jazz Fest, boasting hundreds of bands, multiple stages, a commemorative poster, and the white cards with each performer’s name displayed during their set. Held every June in downtown Birmingham, the festival celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. City streets are blocked off to make room for growing hordes of fans, and food booths (offering uninspired country-fair type fare) and beer tents are around every corner. The music line-up is unequivocally the best thing about the festival, drawing from all genres, and really spotlighting acclaimed singer-songwriters such as Rosanne Cash, Peter Case and Gillian Welch, the likes of whom we rarely get here in New Orleans.

So what does this have to do with New Orleans blues? Well, wouldn’t you know it that even with huge national headliners like The Byrds’ Roger Mcguinn, Soul Asylum and the Phil Collins Big Band (don’t ask), it was Irma Thomas who stole the show the first night of the festival.

First Thomas commanded the main stage in a bravura performance with her fellow Sing It! partners Marcia Ball and Tracy Nelson, putting on a singing clinic with her gospel numbers and regaling the Birmingham crowd with her memories of long-closed Alabama nightclubs. But it was afterwards when she wandered over after to see supreme guitarist Ronnie Earl‘s set that she delivered one of the most transcendent moments I’ve witnessed in a long time.

When Earl realized that Thomas was watching in the wings, he strolled over and gave her a private five-minute performance, which had Irma beaming and clapping along. Then Earl summoned her to center stage, kicking off a rollicking version of “You Can Have My Husband (But Please Don’t Mess With My Man).” Earl convinced Irma to sing one more song, and after a brief conference, played the wistful, jazzy lead of “I’ll Take Care of You.” Thomas proceeded to invest the song with a passion and fire reminiscent of Bobby “Blue” Bland‘s classic version of it, leaving the crowd visibly stunned.

It was a reminder that Thomas is a New Orleans treasure, operating at the peak of her powers. When she’s not out on tour, she’s still enchanting her hometown fans with shows at her Gravier St. club The Lion’s Den. Catch her there at the next opportunity, and ask her if she’s ever considered doing an all-blues album. Judging from her performance with Earl in Birmingham, that’s a project that could be a crown jewel in her illustrious recording career.

CD News…Baton Rouge blues poet, guitarist and singer Larry Garner‘s new effort is Standing Room Only (Ruf Records). Garner’s one of the finest songwriters in contemporary blues, and has amassed a huge audience in Europe with his previous recordings on JSP and Verve. His Ruf debut finds him doing more of what he does best: framing insightful slice-of-life vignettes with lean, T-Bone Walker-ish guitar lines and his pleasing conversational vocals. His new originals “Keep the Money” and “Don’t Start Crying” are fresh anthems, and his choice of covers — Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown‘s “The Drifter” and Henry Gray‘s “Cold Chills — is impeccable. So what in the world was Garner thinking when he included “PMS,” an incredibly shallow song about menstrual cycles?

Tuff City has released Byrd Lives!, a two-CD live recording of Professor Longhair at Tipitina’s circa late-70s. Longhair devotees will want this collection for a number of reasons: it features the amazing conga work of Uganda Roberts, a backing band that includes drummer Johnny Vidacovich and saxophonist Tony Dagradi, and the steel-drum playing of Stanley John. John’s playing is revelatory in this context, further amplifying the Caribbean influence and rhythms in Longhair’s piano playing. The recording is from a board tape, and while it will never pass as high-fi, it’s similar to James Booker‘s live recordings from The Maple Leaf on Rounder — Longhair’s soul cuts right through the mix.

Chris Whitley has returned to the desolate desert-like ambience that marked his debut Living With the Law on Dirt Floor, his debut for Messenger Records. Whitley’s stripped away the feedback-packed experimentation of his last CD Din of Ecstasy and recorded himself solo this time, bringing out the full effect of his haunting vocals and dobro work. Messenger Records is the moonlighting home of Seth from former New Orleans-based alternative band Project Nim.

Corey Harris‘ guitar playing can be heard on the new Billy Bragg and Wilco tribute album to Woody Guthrie…Keb’ Mo‘s third album has been completed and features a guest appearance from Anders Osborne. The record is due out by September…Johnny Adams‘ new Rounder CD, a program of funky rhythm and blues, comes out in mid-August…A second volume of a 1997 Bryan Lee live recording at the A-Bar is being prepared by Canada’s Justin Time label for fall release…Bonnie Raitt recently laid down slide guitar and vocals to Jon Cleary‘s highly anticipated Pointblank debut…Blues and zydeco guitarist and South Louisiana legend Lil’ Buck Senegal has been in the studio recording his debut for Allen Toussaint‘s NYNO Records…West Coast legend Charles Brown does a beautiful version of “New Orleans Blues” on his latest Verve release So Goes Love…Finally, former New Orleans resident and boogie-woogie piano master Carl “Sonny” Leyland is now in California playing with Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys.