Don't Mess With My Man

Recorded in 1959 in New Orleans for Joe Ruffino and Ron Records. Crescent City players Justin Adams, Robert Parker, and Eddie Bo backed Irma Thomas on the session. Released as Thomas’s first record, it reached No. 22 on Billboard’s R&B chart in 1960 and introduced her as a new New Orleans soul voice. The record’s direct, teasing lyric made it a regional favorite and a durable women’s empowerment song. The song remained closely associated with Thomas’s early career and became widely known from its opening line, "You Can Have My Husband." It has been repeatedly covered and cited as an early standard of New Orleans R&B.