This took on a life of its own, being first recorded by Thomas solo, then in a duet with Jennifer Warnes for the show’s second season, then in an extended version sung by Thomas and Dusty Springfield. A more rewarding screen-related venture was his performance of As Long As We Got Each Other, the theme song to the 80s TV sitcom Growing Pains. ![]() He played the gunslinger Jocko in a western called Jory (1973) and appeared in the comedy-drama Jake’s Corner (2008). Thomas described his personal struggles in his autobiography, Home Where I Belong (1978). It won him the first of his five Grammy awards in 1977, and that year he sang at the memorial service for Elvis Presley. He found religion too, and made his first gospel-styled album Home Where I Belong. He reconciled with his wife, Gloria Richardson, whom he had married in 1968, and with her help gave up drugs in 1976. Finally I was totally at the bottom in my life.” They had to hook me up to a machine to keep me alive. He told the Associated Press: “I had begun to overdose a few times. Thomas’s success meant that he was in demand internationally and was frequently on tour, but his problems with drugs reached life-threatening proportions in the early 70s. They recorded I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry for the Pacemaker record label, which became a million-selling hit after it was picked up by New York’s Scepter Records, home to such artists as the Isley Brothers, Dionne Warwick and Tammi Terrell. With his older brother Jerry, he joined a local pop band, the Triumphs, while he was in high school. He especially took to heart the uplifting message from Wilson’s song To Be Loved. He had sung in church as a child, and later drew inspiration from singers including Williams, Mahalia Jackson and Jackie Wilson. Thomas described how, later on, “I went through years of intense alcoholism and drug addiction” and it was music that served as his lifeline. He was dubbed “BJ” when he played Little League baseball at school, to distinguish him from several other players called Billy Joe. ![]() He grew up in Houston and then Rosenberg, Texas, graduating from Rosenberg’s Lamar consolidated high school. In the late 70s and 80s, he scored a string of hits as a gospel and inspirational singer.īilly Joe Thomas was born in Hugo, Oklahoma, the second of three children of Vernon and Geneva Thomas. In 1981 he was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The last of these also topped the US country chart, where he would make numerous appearances, including the No 1 hits Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love and New Looks From An Old Lover (both 1983). He struggled with drug addiction, reaching rock bottom, but managed to quit in 1976. The last of these earned Thomas a season of performances at the Copacabana nightclub in New York.īlessed with a voice that brought a hint of soulfulness to its easy-listening smoothness, he would enjoy further pop hits into the 1970s including I Just Can’t Help Believing (later a hit single and in-concert favourite for Elvis Presley) and No Love at All (1970), the exuberant gospel-styled Mighty Clouds of Joy (1971) and Rock and Roll Lullaby (1972), and would top the US pop chart again with (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song (1975).īJ Thomas performing in 2015. It was his first US No 1 hit, following other chart successes including his Top 10 version of Hank Williams’s I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (1966), The Eyes of a New York Woman (which reached No 28, 1968) and Hooked on a Feeling (No 5, 1968). Although it only got to No 38 in the UK singles chart, its popularity was enduring through regular radio play over the decades. Raindrops won an Oscar for best original song and Thomas performed it at the 1970 Academy Awards ceremony.
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