POP MUSIC REVIEW : Still Fresh After All These Years : Balladeer B.J. Thomas Does a Personable Show--and Spices It With a Dash of Soul

B. J. Thomas certainly has had his share of career ups and downs--and it’s been some time since the veteran singer has seen the up side of the curve. He hasn’t cracked the pop Top 20 since 1977 or the country Top 20 since 1984. His late show Monday atthe Crazy Horse Steak House, however, was a significant reminder of the talent that propelled him to five Grammy awards and a series of top hits in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Crazy Horse performances usually run on a tight clock. Often, you can put a potato in the oven before heading to the club, and have it just about done when you get home. Thomas, though, did a loose, personable, marathon show of two hours-plus, covering most of his hits, songs from the gospel career he launched in 1976, some obscurities, and the preponderance of his just-released Warner Bros. album, “Back Against the Wall.”

For most of the lengthy performance, the shaggy-maned balladeer held the day with his powerful, unmistakable voice and knack for shaping a song. While not a stylist to rank with such giants as Sinatra or Bennett, Thomas does interpret a lyric gracefully, and with a dollop of soul. And you’ve got to love a guy who features the venerable electric sitar on so many numbers.

Backed by an able five-piece band, Thomas served up record-worthy versions of his hits “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” “Don’t Worry Baby” (with a set of more “mature” lyrics than on the Beach Boys’ drag-racin’ original) and the chart-topping Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

There were short-form versions of “Mama,” “Billy and Sue” and “The Eyes of a New York Woman;” the selections from his gospel catalogue included “Mighty Clouds of Joy” and “Amazing Grace.” Thomas’ guitarist strapped on the electric sitar for “Hooked on a Feeling,” lending it a distinctive twang that was decidedly non-country.

The strongest offerings from the new album were “I’m So Glad I’m Standing Here Today,” an affirmation of life by Joe Sample and Will Jennings that Thomas poured his rich voice into, and the singer’s own composition “Back Against the Wall.” It’s a chugging rocker, reflecting on an out-of-control life that eventually was pulled back to earth. Inspiration for such lines as “I was so smug in my prime, at the height of my conceit” perhaps was drawn from Thomas’ own roller-coaster career. He did indeed have some troubled years, with a massive drug problem, before he became a born-again Christian.

The new album’s “What I See in Her is You” is a persuasive ballad, though a couple of other new songs proved as lightweight and lackluster as his 1972 hit “Rock and Roll Lullaby.”

If those songs, and the tolling of the midnight hour, were starting to bog things down a bit, any problems were erased by Thomas’ encore. It started with a movingly rendered ballad, “Wooden Airplanes,” that poignantly addressed lost innocence and brotherhood. Then the sitar was trotted out again for his new album cover of the Stylistics’ 1974 “You Make Me Feel Brand New.” Without venturing quite into the falsetto reaches of the original, Thomas sang it with sincerity and mid-range gusto.

He closed the evening with his now-classic rendition of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Compared to Williams’ brittle-voiced, stark arrangement, Thomas’ version is practically Bolton-ized, slick and high-powered. But unlike Michael Bolton, Thomas doesn’t do a whole song in overdrive, instead shifting through a range of expression and phrasing that, in this case, cast Williams’ dark night in a different landscape.

And unlike many road-worn belters, Thomas still was able to hit every note of his 26-year-old recording, even embellishing it with a few superb new vocal twists.