Timmy Thomas

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Timmy Thomas · Timothy Earle Thomas was born in 1944 in Evansville, Indiana, one of twelve children of a Methodist minister, and died in 2022. His father taught all the children to play piano. He studied at Lane College in Tennessee, accompanied Donald Byrd and Cannonball Adderley and worked as a session musician in Memphis. In the 1960s he released singles on Goldwax Records, among them Have Some Boogaloo and It's My Life. He then moved to Miami, where in 1972 he opened a café of his own and signed with Glades Records.

Music and breakthrough

In 1972 he wrote and recorded Why Can't We Live Together, inspired by hatred, racism and the Vietnam War. The song is stripped down: Thomas plays organ himself, accompanied by a drum machine. The record topped Billboard's R&B chart, reached number three on the Hot 100 and number twelve in Britain, and sold more than two million copies. People Are Changin' followed in 1973, the album You're the Song I've Always Wanted to Sing in 1974, and The Magician in 1976. In 1984 he reached the American soul chart with Gotta Give a Little Love (Ten Years After). In the 1990s he worked as a producer, and his song Dying Inside to Hold You became popular in the Philippines.

Influence

The influence of his big hit remains remarkable. In 2015 Drake sampled it in Hotline Bling, and the bare sound of drum machine and organ is regarded as an early forerunner of later soul and hip-hop.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1974You're the Song I've Always Wanted to Sing
• 1976The Magician
• 1984Gotta Give A Little Love (Ten Years After)

Mentioned in other articles

• Drum machine TechnologyTimmy Thomas set an organ with built-in rhythms to a bossa nova, and Shuggie Otis jammed for hours with his own drum machine.

See also

• Drum machine