BJ Thomas, a Grammy-winning singer who loved success on the pop, nation and gospel charts with hit movies akin to “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin ‘On My Head” and “Hooked On A Feeling”. Dead. He was 78.
Thomas, who introduced in March that he had been identified with lung most cancers, died of issues of the illness on Saturday at his house in Arlington, Texas, his publicist Jeremy Westby mentioned in an announcement.
With nice sorrow we affirm the demise of B.J. Thomas. pic.twitter.com/l2zrmtfmKw
– B.J. Thomas (@TheBJThomas) May 29, 2021
A Hugo, Oklahoma-native who grew up in Houston, Billy Joe Thomas took a break in 1966 with a gospel-style cowl of Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Can Cry” and bought thousands and thousands and bought dozens of information Create. Hit genres. He reached #1 in 1976 (Hey Will You Play) with Other Sambadi Dun Sambadi Rong Song with Pop, Adult Contemporary and Country Lissner. That identical 12 months, his “Home Where I Belong” turned one of many first gospel albums to be licensed Platinum, promoting over 1 million copies.
Dion Warwick, who sang a duet with Thomas, despatched a tweet on Saturday along with his condolences.
“My sincerest condolences to the family of one of my favorite couple partners, B.J. Thomas. I will miss him because I know many others will do the same. Rest in Peace my Friend,” she mentioned.
Thomas ‘signature recording “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”, the No. 1 pop hit and Oscar winner for Best Original Song as a part of the soundtrack to one of many greatest movies of 1969, the irreverent Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Thomas was not the primary selection for the whimsical ballads composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David; Ray Stevens turned down the songwriters. But his heat, soulful tenor matches the tune’s easy temper, immortalizing the movie in the course of the scene Is when Butch (Paul Newman) reveals his new bicycle to Etta Place (Katherine Ross), the girlfriend of the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford).
“Raindrops” has been heard in every single place from “The Simpsons” to “Forrest Gump” and was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013. But, at first, not everybody was happy. Thomas was recovering from laryngitis whereas recording the soundtrack model and his vocals are sharper than the self-released tracks. Meanwhile, Redford suspected that the tune was additionally in “Butch Cassidy”.
“When the film released, I was highly critical – how did the song fit in with the film? It didn’t rain,” Redford informed USA Today in 2019. “At the time, it appeared like a dumb concept. I How incorrect it was. “
Thomas later acknowledged that the incident of “raindrops” exacerbated the habit to drugs and alcohol, which dates again to his teenage years, when a document producer in Houston advised that he take amphetamine to keep up his vitality . He was always touring and recording and taking dozens of drugs a day. By 1976, when “(Hey Don’t You Play) Another Sambadi Dun Sambadi Rong Song” was peaking at #1, he felt it was “number 1,000”.
“I was at the bottom with my addictions and my problems,” he mentioned on “The Debbie Campbell Goodtime Show” in 2020. He cited a “spiritual awakening” he shared along with his spouse, Gloria Richardson, that helped him change into clear.
Thomas had just a few pop hits after the mid-Seventies, however scored on the nation charts with No. 1 songs akin to “Whatever Happened for Old Fashioned Love” and “An Old Lover’s Facelift” to proceed. In the late Seventies and early ’80s, he was additionally a prime gospel and inspirational singer, successful two Dove Awards and 5 Grammys, together with a Grammy in 1979 for Best Gospel Performance for “The Lord’s Prayer”.
Fans of the Eighties sitcom “Growing Pains” heard her because the singer of the present’s theme tune. He additionally starred in a handful of movies together with “Jory” and “Jake’s Corner” and toured ceaselessly. Recent recordings embrace “Living Room Music”, that includes cameos by Lyell Lovett, Vince Gill and Richard Marks. He deliberate to document in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 2020, however the periods have been delayed resulting from an epidemic.
Thomas married Richardson in 1968, and had three daughters: Paige, Nora and Erin. He and his spouse labored on the 1982 memoir “In Tune: Finding How Good Life Can Be”. His e book “Home Where I Belong” appeared in 1978 and Jerry B. Jenkins, later greatest recognized for the million-selling “Left Behind” non secular novels he wrote with Tim Lahey.
In addition to music, Thomas liked baseball as a baby and began calling himself BJ as a result of most of the Little League teammates have been named Billy Joe. In his teenagers, he was singing in church and joined an area rock band, Triumphs, with whom he would stay in his 20s. He loved Ernest Tubes, Hank Williams and different nation artists his dad and mom liked, however on his personal he was impressed by the soul and rhythm and blues singers he heard on the radio or noticed on stage, particularly Jackie Wilson, whose hit ballad “To Be” Loved “Thomas” later lined and adopted as a sort of information to her life.
“I grew up in a really unhealthy state of affairs and I had been by means of a deep alcohol and drug habit for years, so the tune was at all times a touchstone for me. When you open your self as much as medication and alcohol at such a younger age, It turns into one thing that it’s a must to cope with all through your life, ”he informed the Huffington Post in 2014.
“These addictions have caused me so much inhibition and heartbreak and times of failure. But I had that little piece of power from that song. That’s the essence of the whole thing. To be loved and to be loved tomorrow. . And it takes a whole life to complete it. It has always been an important part of my feelings. “
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
