To celebrate the 80th birthday of Irma Thomas, we are reposting this interview excerpt from June 2017 by Michael Allen Zell, which is usually only available to our subscribers. To continue supporting music journalism, please consider donating to OffBeat or getting a subscription so we can continue to provide high quality documentation and coverage of the musical legends of New Orleans.

“I was only 23 years old when I recorded ‘Time Is On My Side.’ It was offered to me when I did the Wish Someone Would Care album sessions in California. I wasn’t told Jimmy Norman was the writer. Jackie DeShannon was there. The Blossoms (with Darlene Love) were the backup singers. H.B. Barnum was the producer and director. The drummer was Earl Palmer, who moved to California from New Orleans and played on my sessions as well as a lot of others. The lady who played [bass] guitar on there was Carol Kaye.

I just told the story in the lyrics. I was a married woman with children. When you have life experiences, it’s pretty easy to tell it.

When I did the tour of England in 1964, I was in Manchester. Two of the Rolling Stones—Mick Jagger and Keith Richards—came to one of my shows. We sat on the side of the stage and chatted for a while. They said they were gonna cover the song, and they did real quick. It matters not to me whether they covered it or not. It wasn’t their fault that the general public decided it was their song, but it pushed my version to the side. I stopped doing it.

When the Rolling Stones came to the States, they didn’t invite me to be their opening act. They invited Tina Turner, which was a bit much, but she was more of a rocker than I was. She used to dress a lot more risqué than I would, so that might’ve been what did it.

My career was just beginning to climb a little bit before the British Invasion came along and killed it. I didn’t get a lot of major work after those groups came to the United States. It was really quite difficult. That’s life.

I didn’t start playing the song again until 1992 when Bonnie Raitt came to New Orleans and invited me to be a part of her New Year’s Eve show. She said that time had been on our side, and I should start singing the song again. I sang it with her and now I do it again. It had been a long time.

In recent years, people have recognized the fact that I did it, and I have been asked to do it more.”