#1417: B.J. Thomas

80s Snapshot:

• Number of songs on Hot 100: 1
• Highest peak position: 93
• Cumulative weeks on Hot 100: 2

Blending pop, easy listening and country sensibilities, B.J. Thomas was one of the most successful artists of his era and certainly the biggest star we’ve covered so far on this journey. Based out of Houston, he broke into the popular consciousness with his band B.J. Thomas and the Triumphs in 1966. Their cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” reached #8 on the Hot 100, followed later in the year by two more Top-40 country-tinged hits with “Mama” (#22) and “Billy and Sue” (#34).

No longer billed with The Triumphs, the first phase of Thomas’s solo career took him towards a more psychedelic sound while still retaining the easy listening sensibilities. The sound of an electric sitar is prominent in “The Eyes Of A New York Woman”, which became a Top 40 hit in the summer of 1968 and peaked at #28. A few months later, his first signature hit stormed the charts. Doubling down on the electric sitar sound, “Hooked On A Feeling” reached #5 on the Hot 100 and further established him as a star in the pop market. Of course, “Hooked On A Feeling” is now best-known for its ooga-chaka cover version by Blue Swede which became a #1 hit in 1974.

1969 started slightly lackluster for Thomas, with singles “It’s Only Love” (#45) and “Pass The Apple Eve” (#97) failing to crack the Top 40. But he would get the biggest break of his career when the light-pop virtuosos Burt Bacharach & Hal David called his number. The songwriting pair penned “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” for the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Thomas recorded it after Ray Stevens and Bob Dylan both turned the track down. It became a certified smash hit, becoming the first #1 hit of the 1970s (spending four weeks at the summit) and also hitting #1 on the Easy Listening chart for a further seven weeks. The song won the Oscar for Best Original Song and earned Thomas his first Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance.

Fully leaning into the easy-listening phase of his career, Thomas next paired with the songwriting duo of Mann/Weil for “I Just Can’t Help Believing”, which hit #9 on the Hot 100 and topped the Easy Listening chart. Between the start of 1970 and the end of 1972, Thomas had 10 singles reach the Hot 100, including 7 Top-40 pop hits and 7 Top-10 easy listening hits. However, his four singles across 1973 and 1974 failed to make the Hot 100, necessitating a further career shift.

A return to his country roots proved to be just the change B.J. Thomas needed to revive his career. The middle of the 1970s was a fertile time for crossover country/easy listening hits, best typified by Olivia Newton-John’s rise to fame. Thomas’s single “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” fit perfectly in this mold, and slowly but surely climbed all the way to #1 on the Hot 100 in April 1975. It would also hit #1 on the Country Singles chart (his first-ever entry on that chart) and became his 4th Easy Listening chart-topper.

The remainder of the 70s saw Thomas vacillating between a handful of different sounds. On the pop side, he had one final Top-40 hit with his cover of the Beach Boys’ classic “Don’t Worry Baby” (#17 in 1977). He hit the country charts in 1978 with “Everybody Loves A Rain Song”, a cheeky nod to his two biggest hits that also hit #2 on the Easy Listening chart. But the biggest development in this period was his branching into contemporary Christian music. His first foray into the genre was the 1977 single “Home Where I Belong”, which won Thomas a Grammy for Best Inspirational Performance.

Thomas would be nominated in this category in a whopping 7 consecutive years, winning 4 times (including a 1981 win over The Crusaders, subject of our previous post). He also won an additional Grammy for Best Gospel Performance for his participation on the 1980 collaborative album The Lord’s Prayer. While he continued to put out Christian records throughout the 80s, he also periodically returned to the sounds that originally made him a star.

1983’s album New Looks would provide his lone foray onto the pop charts in the decade (peaking at #193, it was his final album to reach the Billboard 200 albums chart). Blending his country sound with the piano and orchestrations of his easy listening heyday, lead single “Whatever Happened To Old Fashioned Love” debuted and peaked at #93 on the Hot 100 on the 5/21/1983 chart as part of a 2-week run. It also topped the Country Singles chart, becoming Thomas’s 2nd #1 on that chart and his first in 8 years.

Follow-up single “New Looks From An Old Lover” also hit #1 on the country chart, but failed to reach the Hot 100. Thomas would reach the country chart 6 more times throughout the 80s, including two that hit the Top 10. Coincidentally, one of those 6 singles was a cover of “The Part Of Me That Needs You Most”, who we saw Jay Black also cover for a Hot 100 hit two posts ago.

Thomas also notably sang “As Long As We Got Each Other”, the theme song to the successful sitcom Growing Pains. Re-recorded as a duet with Dusty Springfield for Season 4, the track became his final easy listening Top 10 hit when it reached #7 on the renamed Adult Contemporary chart in 1989. His final single to reach the country charts was 2000’s “You Call That A Mountain” (#66), and his 2013 album The Living Room Sessions (re-recordings of his greatest hits, most as duets with other recording artists like Richard Marx and Vince Gill) made #39 on the Country Albums chart. He passed away in 2021, leaving behind an impressive legacy of 26 Hot 100 hits (including 2 No. 1’s), 25 easy listening hits (including 4 No. 1’s) and 17 country hits (including 3 No. 1’s).

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