BJ Thomas, the singer, who has died aged 78, found fame with the hit singles Hooked on a Feeling and Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head; he later changed direction after overcoming addiction to become one of the most successful proponents of contemporary Christian music.
He began his career as the singer with the Houston-based group The Triumphs, who gained a following with songs including Billy and Sue, and Mama. Their cover of Hank Williams’s I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry was repackaged as Thomas’s debut solo single in 1966 when he signed with Scepter Records, and went on to sell more than a million copies.
He had big hits in 1968 with Eyes of a New York Woman and then Hooked on a Feeling, written for him by his childhood friend Mark James and another million-seller.
In 1969 he moved to New York to work with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, notably on Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, written for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and memorably used in the film’s romantic bicycling interlude. Although Bacharach insisted on no deviation from his own conception of the phrasing, Thomas risked some improv during the final take, and in the last line — “Nothin’s worryin’ me …” — elongated the final word to such wistful effect that Bacharach approved. On its initial release the single was neither a critical nor a popular success; only after the film was released in September 1969 did it leap up the charts to become the first US No 1 single of the 1970s, and Thomas’s third million-seller.
He had been suffering from laryngitis at the recording and his rasping rendition was praised as in keeping with the picture’s ramshackle charm.
Raindrops carried off the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1970, with Thomas firing blanks from a six-shooter as he sang at the ceremony. He was much less happy with a performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which entered the annals of TV’s most absurd moments: he was deluged with water and reduced to mopping it from his eyes while trying to mime to the soundtrack.
By this stage, however, Thomas was addicted to alcohol, pills and cocaine. With the help of his wife, he eventually underwent a “spiritual awakening” and turned his life around. He signalled a change of musical direction with (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song, which won the Grammy for Best Country Song in 1976 but had enough mainstream appeal to become his second US No 1.
He released a gospel album, Home Where I Belong, in 1976; it became the first Christian album to go platinum, as did its three successors, and led to his dominating the Christian charts for some years, winning four Grammies, for “inspirational” work.
Billy Joe Thomas was born on August 7, 1942 in Hugo, Oklahoma, and grew up in Houston. He sang in a church choir but had no thoughts of turning professional until his brother Jerry told him a friend in a band — The Triumphs — needed a singer, and took him along to audition.
Thomas’s last pop hit was a cover of The Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry Baby in 1977, but he continued to do well in the Country charts with songs such as New Looks from an Old Lover and Two Car Garage. He also performed As Long as We Got Each Other, the theme for the sitcom Growing Pains, and released a duet of it with Dusty Springfield.
Having grown up in an emotionally repressed household, B J Thomas found singing a release and engaged passionately with his material: “There were plenty of guys who could sing better than me, but I don’t think there was anybody who believed what they were singing any more than me.”
He married, in 1968, singer-songwriter Gloria Richardson. She survives him with their three daughters.
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
