Biography
The nickname "Portland's Pillar of Soul" suits Ural Thomas well. Over more than five decades his buoyant soul output has remained steady, while his long-running weekly jam sessions in his adopted city fostered an ongoing sense of camaraderie among local players. Equally at ease as a halting crooner or an impassioned belter, and skilled at crafting songs from an ordinary person's vantage point, Thomas cut sides throughout the 1960s—first alongside the Monterays, then alone via a pair of UNI 45s that preceded his debut long-player, Can You Dig It...Live (1968). Following an extended recording hiatus, he formed a close partnership with drummer and bandleader Scott Magee; backed by the Pain, Thomas has maintained a steady performance schedule and issued the albums Ural Thomas & the Pain (2016), The Right Time (2018), and Dancing Dimensions (2022).
Born Ural Thompson in Meraux just outside New Orleans, Thomas relocated with his family to Portland during World War II. The child of a minister, he gravitated toward music from an early age. Already an experienced stage presence by his late teens—he had opened for Etta James—he fronted the vocal ensemble the Mono Rays, also billed as the Monterays, which worked the Pacific Northwest circuit. Their lone 1964 release on the regional Sure Star imprint contained two originals by Thomas, "Push Em Up" and "Deep Within My Heart." In 1967 his voice and writing credits drove Run Buford's "Deep Soul, Pt. 1" on Seattle's Camelot label. That same year, while based briefly in Los Angeles, he cut two solo UNI sides for MCA, "Can You Dig It?" and "Pain Is the Name of the Game," both produced by Jerry Goldstein and arranged by Gene Page. Also in 1967, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters recorded the Thomas co-write "Here Comes the Hurt." Revue, another MCA imprint, documented a Seattle performance on his first album, Can You Dig It...Live, issued the following year. After a brief stay in Cincinnati—where the Ballard single appeared on King Records—Thomas spent time in New York and became a regular favorite at the Apollo Theater.
Having stepped away from the business and returned to Portland by the close of the 1960s, Thomas stopped making records apart from a lone 1982 single, yet continued hosting the multi-decade jam sessions that cemented his local-legend status, a reputation further bolstered by Mississippi Records' 2011 reissues of earlier material. Introduced to Thomas by Mississippi's Eric Isaacson, Portland DJ, producer, and drummer Scott Magee (of Loch Lomond and Y La Bamba) joined one of the sessions, struck up a friendship with the host, and persuaded him to return to the studio, eventually serving as his bandleader. The resulting project, Ural Thomas & the Pain, delivered a self-titled debut on Mississippi in 2016. Two years later the group issued The Right Time on the Portland-based Tender Loving Empire imprint. Still functioning as a collective, Thomas and his collaborators then moved to Bella Union for their third joint effort, Dancing Dimensions, which surfaced in 2022.
Born Ural Thompson in Meraux just outside New Orleans, Thomas relocated with his family to Portland during World War II. The child of a minister, he gravitated toward music from an early age. Already an experienced stage presence by his late teens—he had opened for Etta James—he fronted the vocal ensemble the Mono Rays, also billed as the Monterays, which worked the Pacific Northwest circuit. Their lone 1964 release on the regional Sure Star imprint contained two originals by Thomas, "Push Em Up" and "Deep Within My Heart." In 1967 his voice and writing credits drove Run Buford's "Deep Soul, Pt. 1" on Seattle's Camelot label. That same year, while based briefly in Los Angeles, he cut two solo UNI sides for MCA, "Can You Dig It?" and "Pain Is the Name of the Game," both produced by Jerry Goldstein and arranged by Gene Page. Also in 1967, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters recorded the Thomas co-write "Here Comes the Hurt." Revue, another MCA imprint, documented a Seattle performance on his first album, Can You Dig It...Live, issued the following year. After a brief stay in Cincinnati—where the Ballard single appeared on King Records—Thomas spent time in New York and became a regular favorite at the Apollo Theater.
Having stepped away from the business and returned to Portland by the close of the 1960s, Thomas stopped making records apart from a lone 1982 single, yet continued hosting the multi-decade jam sessions that cemented his local-legend status, a reputation further bolstered by Mississippi Records' 2011 reissues of earlier material. Introduced to Thomas by Mississippi's Eric Isaacson, Portland DJ, producer, and drummer Scott Magee (of Loch Lomond and Y La Bamba) joined one of the sessions, struck up a friendship with the host, and persuaded him to return to the studio, eventually serving as his bandleader. The resulting project, Ural Thomas & the Pain, delivered a self-titled debut on Mississippi in 2016. Two years later the group issued The Right Time on the Portland-based Tender Loving Empire imprint. Still functioning as a collective, Thomas and his collaborators then moved to Bella Union for their third joint effort, Dancing Dimensions, which surfaced in 2022.
Albums
Singles
