‘Hooked on a Feeling’ singer B.J. Thomas dies at 78

B.J. Thomas, the Grammy-winning singer who loved success on the pop, nation and gospel charts with such hits as “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” and “Hooked on a Feeling,” has died. He was 78.
Thomas, who introduced in March that he had been recognized with lung most cancers, died from problems of the illness Saturday at his residence in Arlington, Texas, his publicist Jeremy Westby stated in a press release.

It is with profound unhappiness we affirm the passing of BJ Thomas. pic.twitter.com/l2zrmtfmKw
— BJ Thomas (@TheBJThomas) May 29, 2021
A Hugo, Oklahoma-native who grew up in Houston, Billy Joe Thomas broke via in 1966 with a gospel-styled cowl of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and went on to promote thousands and thousands of information and have dozens of hits throughout genres. He reached No. 1 with pop, grownup up to date and nation listeners in 1976 with ″(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.” The similar yr, his “Home Where I Belong” turned one of many first gospel albums to be licensed platinum for promoting greater than 1 million copies.
Dionne Warwick, who duetted with Thomas, despatched out a tweet Saturday together with her condolences.
“My sincere condolences to the family of one of my favorite duet partners, BJ Thomas. I will miss him as I know so many others will as well. Rest In Peace my friend,” she stated.
Thomas’ signature recording was “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” a No. 1 pop hit and an Oscar winner for finest authentic music as a part of the soundtrack to one of many largest films of 1969, the irreverent Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Thomas wasn’t the primary option to carry out the whimsical ballad composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David; Ray Stevens turned the songwriters down. But his heat, soulful tenor match the music’s easygoing temper, immortalized on movie through the scene when Butch (Paul Newman) exhibits off his new bicycle to Etta Place (Katharine Ross), the girlfriend of the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford).

“Raindrops” has since been heard in all places 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 raspier than for the observe launched by itself. Redford, in the meantime, doubted the music even belonged in “Butch Cassidy.”
“When the film was released, I was highly critical — how did the song fit with the film? There was no rain,” Redford informed USA Today in 2019. “At the time, it seemed like a dumb idea. How wrong I was.”

Thomas would later say the phenomenon of “Raindrops” exacerbated an habit to tablets and alcohol which dated again to his teenagers, when a file producer in Houston urged he take amphetamines to maintain his vitality up. He was touring and recording consistently and taking dozens of tablets a day. By 1976, whereas ″(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” was hitting No. 1, he felt like he was “number 1,000.”
“I was at the bottom with my addictions and my problems,” he stated in 2020 on “The Debby Campbell Goodtime Show.” He cited a “spiritual awakening,” shared along with his spouse, Gloria Richardson, with serving to him to get clear.
Thomas had few pop hits after the mid-Seventies, however he continued to attain on the nation charts with such No. 1 songs as “Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love” and “New Looks from an Old Lover.” In the late Seventies and early ’80s, he was additionally a high gospel and inspirational singer, profitable two Dove awards and 5 Grammys, together with a Grammy in 1979 for finest gospel efficiency for “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Fans of the Nineteen Eighties sitcom “Growing Pains” heard him because the singer of the present’s theme music. He additionally acted in a handful of films, together with “Jory” and “Jake’s Corner” and toured typically. Recent recordings included “Living Room Music,” that includes cameos from Lyle Lovett, Vince Gill and Richard Marx. He had deliberate to file in 2020 in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, however the classes have been delayed due to the pandemic.
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” got here out in 1978 and was co-authored by Jerry B. Jenkins, later well-known for the million-selling “Left Behind” spiritual novels written with Tim LaHaye.

Besides music, Thomas cherished baseball as a child and began calling himself B.J. as a result of so many Little League teammates additionally have been named Billy Joe. By his teenagers, he was singing in church and had joined a neighborhood rock band, the Triumphs, whom he would stick with into his 20s. He loved Ernest Tubbs, Hank Williams and different nation performers his dad and mom favored, however on his personal he was impressed by the soul and rhythm and blues singers he heard on the radio or noticed on stage, notably Jackie Wilson, whose hit ballad “To Be Loved” Thomas later lined and adopted as a form of information to his life.
“I was raised in a fairly dysfunctional situation and I went through years of intense alcoholism and drug addiction so the song was always a touchstone for me. When you open yourself up to drugs and alcohol at such a young age it becomes something you have to deal with the rest of your life,” he informed the Huffington Post in 2014.
“What a road block and heartbreak and times of failure these addictions have caused me. But I had that little piece of lightning from that song. That’s the essence of the whole thing. To love and be loved. And that takes a lifetime to accomplish. It’s always been an important part of my emotions.”