A Few Moments with … B.J. Thomas
He's sold more than 70 million records. In his 50-plus years as a recording artist, he's had 15 Top 40 pop hits and 11 Top 40 country hits. He became the 60th member of the Grand Ole Opry on his 39th birthday. He has written two best-selling books and appeared in several movies. It all adds up to an incredible career for Billy Joe Thomas from Hugo, Oklahoma. Here, he shares a few thoughts about his long, ongoing career and looks forward to seeing everyone on The Country Music Cruise 2016.
You’ve worked in country, R&B, pop, rock and gospel. Is there anyone else you can think of who has covered so many bases so successfully?
Maybe Elvis. Ray Charles, too. But the thing is, I never tried to do different styles. I brought the same attitude to all of them and maybe that’s why it worked. I wasn’t trying to sing differently. When we started, it was the beginning of Top 40 radio, and they played pop, country, R&B, so we just soaked it all up … and it came out like it came out!
The Opry is one of our partners on The Country Music Cruise. You grew up in Houston. Could you pick up the show down there?
My dad loved the Grand Ole Opry. He’d tune it in every week, and yes, we could pick it up pretty good. My dad loved Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb and all the Opry regulars. That show was a huge part of my early listening. My dad took me to an Opry touring show at the Houston Coliseum. Hank was on with Ernest Tubb and Carl Smith. (Note, this was in May, 1952, when B.J. was 9 years old. Hank was advertised as a “mystery guest” in case he didn’t show up).
It must have been a big thrill for you to become an Opry member.
I was recording in Nashville then, and working with steel guitarist/producer Pete Drake, and I think Pete had a big part in getting me inducted. I still play the show every chance I get. In fact, I was on last weekend with Vince Gill and Ricky Skaggs. Joining the Opry was a big deal to me because I knew it would have been a big deal to my dad. Much of my motivation to join came from that, but I still love to go there. No other venue feels the same.
You’re on record as saying that you loved Jackie Wilson’s singing. Did you ever get to meet him?
When I had my first hit with “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” some booking agents thought I was a black artist, and they booked me for a week with James Brown and another week in Cleveland with Jackie Wilson. Jackie’s music just set the bar so high. From him, I realized how I wanted to interpret songs. It was that magic combination of technical brilliance and emotion. I still do at least one of his songs in every show.
You were a teenager when rock ’n’ roll erupted. Did it make you feel as if it was music made for you?
It was the music of my time. When we started our band [B.J. Thomas and The Triumphs] we were too young to play clubs where liquor was served, so we played dance halls out in the boondocks. Mostly, they’d have oom-pah polka bands and we were the first rock ’n’ roll band they’d ever booked. We were kinda on the cutting edge, I guess you’d say. But it was easy to love that music.
Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” is a classic, but you scored the first hit with it. When Hank recorded it, it was a B-side. What gave you the idea to do it?
It hadn’t been a hit, but it had been recorded something like 72 times before we did it. Many more times since, of course. People have always been attracted to that song, especially knowing what we know about Hank and his life. But, like you say, I had the first hit with it. Me and the band had seen the [1963 Hank Williams bio-pic] “Your Cheatin’ Heart” with George Hamilton as Hank. We all agreed we should start doing that song. It just evolved because we did it on every show. Then we recorded it for Pacemaker Records, and then Scepter Records picked it up for national distribution, and then it became a gold record.
When you recorded “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” you had the movie of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” up on a screen as you were recording. Did you think at the time, “Hey this could be a mighty big movie … and this could be a big song”? Or was it just another session?
We did that song twice: the movie version in Hollywood and the single version in New York. But, yes, I absolutely believed right away it could be a big movie and a big song. I was on Scepter Records, and Burt Bacharach was one of the producers and songwriters for Scepter, but I hadn’t worked with him. I’d been recording in Memphis. I had laryngitis when we did the movie version but we rerecorded it in New York with probably 100 musicians in the studio. I’ve never had such a positive feeling about a song. It got terrible reviews … ‘Worst song Bacharach and David have ever written,’ and so on, but then the movie became a hit, and the record took off. There was a feeling of liberation in the lyrics and the melody. Something that’s hard to put into words.
Was it a big moment for you when Elvis covered “I Just Can’t Help Believing”? He did it on so many of his ’70s shows.
Elvis was so huge and so special. We wouldn’t do his songs when I was playing clubs in the ’50s, early ’60s. It was like he’d had the last word on all his songs. He was untouchable. I listened to him, Bobby Bland, Jackie Wilson and Ray Charles more than anyone else. And then, in the early 1970s, I was recording in Memphis at the American Studio with [producer] Chips Moman, and Elvis took notice of all the hits I was cutting there. They’d been trying to get him to come in and record at American because he hadn’t recorded in Memphis for years. So then he came in and recorded all those hits, “In the Ghetto,” “Suspicious Minds” and so on. We all wanted for him to have hits again.
Were you ever offered a song and you said no, and it became a big hit for someone else?
Ah, you had to bring that up! A music publisher sent me “I Just Can’t Help Believing” and “Here You Come Again.” We only had time on the session to do one, so I did “I Just Can’t Help Believing.” Dolly Parton heard “Here You Come Again” later and asked if she could do it. People always think she wrote it because she wrote so many of her songs, but she didn’t write that one. It was Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
When we set sail it will be exactly 50 years since “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” became a hit. There have been a lot of changes. Forty-fives to LPs to CDs to streaming. Concerts with big light shows and so on.
You had to bring that up, too! Yes, 50 years. But everything always changes. These days, I don’t think pop, country and R&B are at the greatest level they’ve ever been. Maybe every generation thinks this, but I think our generation made the best music. We didn’t have the greatest technology, but it captured the feel and soul of what we were trying to do. I do tours in South American, Australia, Europe. Even the young people there love ’60s and ’70s music. It was a high watermark for American music, in my opinion.
Do you miss recording live with the band in the studio or do you still try to record that way?
I still try to record that way. I love to use a live band in the studio. I’ve just done a new project that way. Live band, live horns. Otherwise, it’s like karaoke music. No soul, no emotion.
In ’75 you did “Hey, Won’t You Play Another Somebody Did Somebody Wrong Song” and it became a No. 1 pop and country record. Was that the record that made you think about reorienting your career toward country?
What happened was that my producer, Chips Moman, had moved from Memphis to Nashville. We’d cut an entire LP in Nashville, and neither of us thought there was a hit on it. Then the piano player, Bobby Emmons, said, ‘Hey, Chips, play B.J. that new song you’re working on.’ As soon as I heard it, I knew it! And yes, it started a whole new career for me.
You’ve been on several cruises. Do you enjoy them?
Sure do! They give me a chance to bring my wife along. We’ve been married since ’68, and she doesn’t travel with me anymore unless we go on cruises, so I love that. I get a chance to relax and meet the fans, and play more intimate rooms than I do on the road. So yes, I love it, and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone on the Country Cruise!
You’ve written several best-selling spiritual books based on your life. Have you ever had anyone come up to you and tell you that they turned their lives around after reading them?
Many times. I’ve had people say that about my records, too, and I can tell you it’s very gratifying. I’ve actually started writing a book about my life. Not just the spiritual aspect, but my entire career. I want to uplift people with my words and my music, and I’ve been able to do that. That makes me one of the lucky ones.