Without Carla Thomas, there’s no “legendary” Stax records. There’s no Isaac Hayes talking about Shaft, baby. There’s no Otis Redding at Monterey, there’s no “Try A Little Tenderness.” Without Thomas, Stax would have been, at best, relegated to the Trivial Pursuit section of music history, alongside any number of regional record labels that went *poof* in the ’60s and ’70s. Thomas was Stax’s first star—the only solo woman to put out more than two albums on the label—and she was indirectly responsible for everything that came after. That she is remembered after Redding, Booker T, Isaac Hayes, Sam & Dave and even her dad, Rufus Thomas, is a vagary of history.