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American soul music singer (born 1939) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ural Thomas (born 21 December 1939)[1] is an American soul music singer. While Thomas has made music for over fifty years, his public performances span two eras: the 1950s through the 1960s, and from 2013 through the present as Ural Thomas and the Pain.
Thomas was born in Louisiana, learning to sing in church.[2] The seventh of sixteen children, his family relocated to Portland, Oregon when he was a young child.[3] He attended Jefferson High School.[4]
Thomas became a professional singer in the 1950s as a young man, with over forty performances at the Apollo Theater.[5] He worked with or opened for musicians such as Etta James,[4] Otis Redding, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder.[1] Thomas moved back to Portland in 1968.[citation needed]
In the early 2010s Scott Magee, a Portland-based soul DJ, learned via the owner of Mississippi Records that Thomas—whose early records he spun—still lived in Portland.[1] Despite having weekly jam sessions in his home, a tradition started in the 1970s, Thomas seldom played live shows.[6] Together, Thomas and Magee created Ural Thomas and the Pain, an eight-piece backing band for Thomas's vocals.[2] The group has released two full length albums: 2016's self-titled release and 2018's The Right Time, the latter of which was released on the label Tender Loving Empire.[7] The band has played in venues as large as the main stage of the Waterfront Blues Festival.[8] Their third album, Dancing Dimensions, was released on Bella Union in June, 2022.[9][10]
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