MUSIC

Cypress Creek FACE presents B.J. Thomas, 8 p.m., Saturday, May 14, 2011.

He owns one of the most distinctive voices in American pop music. B.J.’s signature hits—the Oscar-winning “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” the millions-selling “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” and his career-igniting cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

There aren’t many areas of popular music B. J. Thomas hasn’t impacted. Since the mid-1960′s, when he became one of the most successful artists on the American musical landscape, he has recorded an incredible string of successes in several genres – 15 Top 40 pop hits, 10 Top 40 Country hits, five Grammys, two Dove awards, two platinum and 11 gold records, and chart-toppers on the pop, country, gospel and adult contemporary charts. Along the way, his has become one of the most recognized and respected voices of his generation.

Almost 50 million records after his initial successes, B.J.’s versatility is as much of his approach as his wonderfully expressive voice. “I love singing all of it,” he says with the same enthusiasm he brings to his high-voltage stage show. “I’ve always enjoyed singing country. Gospel and old hymns mean a lot to me, and I still really enjoy doing rock and roll. I really don’t think it’s that important what kind of song you sing as long as the attitude that comes through is good.” In fact, B.J. has always chosen to present positive, uplifting material – no matter what genre he’s been working in. “As a singer,” he says, “you’ve got the chance to make people’s spirits, and their lives, a little better.”

Fans and concert-goers frequently approach B.J. to thank him for the impact of songs ranging from his megahit “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” to country smashes like “New Looks From An Old Lover.” He is still recording records at a time when most of his contemporaries have long since passed from the scene.

By 1968, he’d had four gold records – “The Eyes Of A New York Woman,” “Hooked On A Feeling” and “It’s Only Love” being the other three – and label-mate Dionne Warwick, who’d been working with the Burt Bacharach/Hal David songwriting team, recommended him for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” which was written for the motion picture “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid.”

“I was in the right place at the right time,” B.J. says, “and probably got their best song ever.” “Raindrops” was Bacharach/David’s first million-seller; it won an Academy Award and B.J. sang the song on the 1970 Academy Awards telecast.

B. J. Thomas would go on during the early 1970′s to record hits like “I Just Can’t Help Believin’,” “No Love At All” and “Rock And Roll Lullaby,” scoring a dozen gold records. Throughout the period, he sold tens of millions of records and appeared regularly on TV programs like the Ed Sullivan Show and in top nightclubs and concert halls. In 1976, he released the first of several gospel albums, “Home Where I Belong,” which went platinum, making him the biggest contemporary Christian artist of the period. Over the next several years, he received a couple of Dove awards.

B. J. Thomas has had 10 Top 40 hits on the country charts with hits like “What Ever Happened To Old Fashioned Love” and “New Looks From An Old Lover.” His country music success led him to become, on his 39th birthday, the 60th member of the Grand Ole Opry.

“Singing has always been something I do,” he says. “It’s not who I am. I realized a long time ago that I was a guy who loved his wife and his kids, so it’s not always been real important for me to be number one.” And yet he’s never far from that drive that has helped pull him from one bit of success to the next. “When I do music,” he says “I do so with everything I can give it. And I’m sure I always will.”