who sang raindrops keep falling on my head

He then turned to gospel music, and the same year, his album 'Home where I belong' sold over a million copies.īJ Thomas had revealed in March to be suffering from an advanced form of lung cancer. “With his silky, rich voice, and his infallible sense of song, Thomas's vast career has embraced several styles, including country, pop, and gospel,” they added.Īfter several years of addiction to alcohol and drugs in the 1970s, a 'turning point' in his life according to the press release came in 1976 with his conversion as an evangelical Christian. Burt Bacharach composed the music while Hal David wrote the lyrics for the popular song, which garnered a 1969 Academy Award for Best Song (for Butch Cassidy. 'Few artists have left a more memorable mark on the American musical landscape than BJ Thomas,' said his agents on their site. Sacha Distel will borrow the melody from him to make his 'All the rain is falling on me'. With this ode to optimism, he won an Oscar and reached the heights of the charts in the United States. Winner of five Grammy Awards between 19, he first became known to the public in 1966 with a cover of country singer Hank Williams, 'I'm so lonesome I could cry', then with the song 'Hooked on a feeling ”in 1968.īut it is with 'Raindrops keep fallin 'on my head', soundtrack of the film 'Butch Cassidy and the Kid' in 1969, that he reaches a real fame. In France, the man of a song heard and heard again through the decades, adapted in France by Sacha Distel.Īmerican singer BJ Thomas, performer of the song 'Raindrops keep fallin'on my head,' died of lung cancer at his Arlington, Texas home on Saturday at the age of 78, his agents said. His book Home Where I Belong came out in 1978 and was co-authored by Jerry B Jenkins, later famous for the Left Behind religious novels written with Tim LaHaye.In the United States, he was a renowned artist. He and his wife worked on a 1982 memoir, In Tune: Finding How Good Life Can Be. Thomas married Richardson in 1968 and had three daughters: Paige, Nora and Erin. He planned to record in 2020 in Muscle Shoals, Alabama but the sessions were delayed by the pandemic. Recent recordings included Living Room Music, featuring Lyle Lovett, Vince Gill and Richard Marx. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head Raindrops keep fallin on my head And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed Nothin seems to fit Those. He also acted in movies including Jory and Jake’s Corner. But shortly after his career began, he became dependent on drugs and alcohol. Thomas married singer-songwriter Gloria Richardson in December 1968 and they had three daughters. In the late 1970s and early 80s he was a top gospel and inspirational singer, winning two Dove awards and five Grammys.įans of the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains heard him as the singer of the theme song. When I learned that he passed away at the end of May, immediately one of his top songs, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, starting playing on the jukebox of my mind. Thomas had few pop hits after the mid-1970s but he continued to score on the country charts with such songs as Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love and New Looks from an Old Lover. He cited a “spiritual awakening”, shared with his wife, Gloria Richardson, with helping him get clean. “I was at the bottom with my addictions and my problems,” he said in 2020. By 1976, while (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song was hitting No 1, he felt like he was “number 1,000”. He was touring and recording constantly and taking dozens of pills a day. Thomas would say the phenomenon of Raindrops exacerbated an addiction to pills and alcohol which dated back to his teens, when a record producer in Houston suggested he take amphetamines. Raindrops has been heard everywhere from The Simpsons to Forrest Gump and was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013. Thomas wasn’t the first choice to perform the whimsical ballad composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David but his warm, soulful tenor fit the song’s easygoing mood. Thomas’s signature recording was Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, a No 1 pop hit and an Oscar-winner for best original song as part of one of the biggest movies of 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I will miss him as I know so many others will as well.

The same year, Home Where I Belong became one of the first gospel albums to sell more than a million copies.ĭionne Warwick, who duetted with Thomas, tweeted: “My sincere condolences to the family of one of my favorite duet partners, BJ Thomas. He reached No1 with pop, adult contemporary and country listeners in 1976 with (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song. He went on to sell millions of records and have dozens of hits. A Hugo, Oklahoma-native who grew up in Houston, Billy Joe Thomas broke through in 1966 with a gospel-styled cover of Hank Williams’s I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.

Who sang raindrops keep falling on my head