If he's remembered at all, B.J. Thomas would probably be remembered for that "My Heart Will Go On" of 1970, Grammy and Academy Award winning "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". If not that, it may be for the original version of "Hooked On A Feeling" or, thanks to the King's constant plundering of B.J.'s catalog, the guy who sang a lot of the same songs Elvis did.
By the time "Hooked On A Feeling" was released, Billy Joe, backed by The Triumphs, the band he joined in high school, had been recording singles for minuscule labels for more than five years. In 1964 they came close to a regional hit with the deliciously creepy "Billy and Sue" on Bragg but interest faded just as quickly as it had begun, a fate that a lease deal with and re-issue on Warner Brothers couldn't stop. The act eventually came to the attention of Houston's legendary Huey P. Meaux and they recorded an album with him with the intention of selling the product at their shows. Having promised his father that he would include at least one country song amongst the R&B covers, B.J. finished the all night album session with an exhausted cover of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Smelling a hit, Meaux released the cut as a single on one of his many small labels and watched as it took off.
Scepter Records stepped in with a national offer which was accepted with the provision that any B.J. Thomas releases would be sold in Texas on Meaux's label while the rest of the country would get the product on Scepter. "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" hit the national top ten in 1966. The maudlin "Mama" followed it a few months later, just missing the top twenty. Meanwhile, another label, Hickory, picked up the lease on the now two year old "Billy and Sue" and gave it another go. This time the swampy tale of battlefields and infidelity gave B.J. and the boys their third top forty single. Scepter issued a handful of singles, mostly the remaining Meaux tracks already released on his label, but couldn't get the act anywhere near the top forty in 1967. Meaux finally closed his Pacemaker label at the end of that year relinquishing B.J., and Pacemaker's A&R man, Steve Tyrell, to Scepter, and a B.J. was sent to Memphis to Chip Moman's American Studios for a new direction.
The first single from that union was "The Eyes Of A New York Woman", a record that can barely conceal the feelings of freedom, relief, or joy. The American boys - and Moman - propel B.J. along his journey into a new world and a new love, shamelessly borrowing the string line from that earlier American classic, "The Letter", and a few other tricks to boot. I can not hear this record without smiling or throwing my arms wide open to embrace it and, much to Dan's chagrin, I can't play it just once or twice.
"The Eyes Of A New York Woman" only got to twenty-eight but it paved the way for the top five "Hooked On A Feeling". There are many of us who will argue that it should have been the other way around.
