Sat 2/1 @ 7:30PM
Tracey Thomas hit northeast Ohio with bang in the late 70s, when her band, the Akron-based Unit 5, became the darlings of the area new wave scene and Thomas was its princess. The quintet released an album Scared of the Dark on Akron’s Clone Records in 1981, and national labels began circling.
But that came to nothing, and Thomas disappeared from the music scene — until she was lured out of retirement in the mid 90s by Akron music scene catalyst Ryan Humbert (now enjoying national success with his red-hot alt country band the Shootouts), who produced a string of “comeback” albums for her. He also produced her new album Words Can’t Save Us Now, her eighth since that comeback and remains her tireless cheerleader and promoter despite his own busy schedule.
“I think I’d have found my way back a little back,” she says of her later-in-life career revival. “ But I wouldn’t have gone back into it at the level he has me to. He just believes in me and supports me.”
In addition to the new album, Thomas is releasing a book called Little Miss Akron which reflects on her music career over four-plus decades. Both will debut at a release party at Weathervane Playhouse Saturday February 1. Thomas will perform with a six-piece acoustic ensemble, reflecting the acoustic orientation of the new album, featuring members of the Shootouts and the Numbers Band. The Shootouts will perform an opening set. Go here for tickets.
The album includes five new songs written by Thomas and Humbert as well as cover tracks by the Waterboys, U2, Taylor Swift and veteran Akron songwriter Jim Ballard. She describes it as something she’s yearned to do her whole career.
“I said my whole life I was going to do my Joni Mitchell Blue,” she shares. “That’s the album I put on and go for long drives and just cry. It’s such a lovely emotional record. I don’t want people to think I’m comparing my record to hers; I’m comparing it to the feeling I get from listen to it. It’s as close as I’ll get in my career to conjuring that. It’s stripped down, it’s lyric based.”
Thomas went through many musical stages to arrive at where she’s at now and unexpectedly finding herself a music-making lifer, a story she tells in her book which, like her music, she was encouraged to do by Humbert, who urged her to make a book from notes she started making during the pandemic.
“I talk in the book about how Unit 5 was getting a lot of attention, and at one point we had Columbia, Island and Capitol [record labels] in the same room talking to us and all they wanted to talk about was how marketable I was because of the way I looked, talking about could you wear this, how can you wear your hair. They didn’t want to talk about our music. They kept talking about how I looked like Debbie Harry. It’s like the Britney Spears thing. They find people who are marketable and go can you sing? Oh well, we’ll teach you.”
All three of Thomas’ kids— two daughters and a son — are musicians and singer/songwriters (her daughter Emma is in Cleveland band Suitor). It’s so different now. I see some change. My daughter doesn’t have to put up with that.
I feel more ageism now than sexism.”
But ageism hasn’t stopped Thomas either.
“I’m a total hypochondriac so during the pandemic, I thought covid would kill me,” she says.” I thought what haven’t I done and one of those things was to play in an all-female band. But I was alive so I put word out and found women over 50. I wanted to show that they’re not ready to go out to pasture.”
She posted a notice on Facebook and found the four other women musicians who now form The Crones, who play out regularly.
“Everyone’s got experience and they all went yeah, I want to play again. I’m at the age where if I want to do something I’m not going to analyze it, I’m just going to do it. We’ve got older women coming out in droves, they dance. It’s been more than we thought. I thought it was going to be a fun project, but it’s gone deeper than that. I’m 65 and still doing my thing. I get all the time, oh are you still making music? I don’t think there’s an expiration date.”