Ural Thomas earned the fitting label “Portland’s Pillar of Soul” through more than five decades of upbeat soul music and decades-long weekly jam sessions that nurtured a tight-knit community of local players. Equally adept at halting croons and full-throated shouts, the skilled songwriter with an everyday outlook first cut tracks in the 1960s alongside the Monterays, then stepped out alone for a pair of UNI 45s that paved the way for his debut long-player, Can You Dig It...Live (1968). After years away from the studio, Thomas connected with drummer and bandleader Scott Magee; backed by the Pain, he resumed steady performances and issued the collaborative albums Ural Thomas & the Pain (2016), The Right Time (2018), and Dancing Dimensions (2022).
Born Ural Thompson in Meraux just beyond New Orleans, he relocated with his family to Portland during World War II soon after his arrival. Growing up as the child of a minister, Thomas gravitated toward music in his earliest years. Already an experienced stage presence by the close of his 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. The group placed a 1964 single on the regional Sure Star imprint, both sides written by Thomas: “Push Em Up” and “Deep Within My Heart.” In 1967 his vocal and compositional work appeared on Run Buford’s “Deep Soul, Pt. 1,” released via Seattle’s Camelot label. That same year, while in Los Angeles, Thomas recorded two solo UNI sides for MCA—“Can You Dig It?” and “Pain Is the Name of the Game”—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 subsidiary, captured his first album, Can You Dig It...Live, the following year at a Seattle performance. After a brief stay in Cincinnati, where King Records issued the Ballard single, 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 late 1960s, Thomas largely stopped recording aside from a lone 1982 single, yet he sustained his local-legend standing by leading jam sessions that ran for decades and by overseeing Mississippi Records’ 2011 reissues of earlier material. Introduced to Thomas by the label’s Eric Isaacson, Portland DJ, producer, and drummer Scott Magee—Loch Lomond and Y La Bamba—joined one of those sessions, struck up a friendship, and urged Thomas back into the studio, ultimately serving as his bandleader. The resulting project, Ural Thomas & the Pain, appeared on Mississippi in 2016; two years later the ensemble returned on Tender Loving Empire with The Right Time. Continuing their fully collaborative approach, the group then moved to Bella Union for their third joint effort, Dancing Dimensions, issued in 2022.
