Singer Timmy Thomas, whose Biggest Hit was the Anti-War Anthem, Dies


In the summer of 1972, singer and keyboardist Timmy Thomas was watching the “CBS Evening News” and heard Walter Cronkite chart the death toll of American and Vietcong soldiers that day.

“I told, ‘What?!’ So many mothers’ children died today?” Mr. Thomas told Spin magazine: “Are so many families in a war where we can’t come to the table and talk about it without losing loved ones?” ‘Why can’t we live together?’ said.

His question became the title of his best-known song: a soulful, mournful account of the Vietnam War he sang to his accompaniment on an electric organ and drum machine. With a similar feeling to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” a year ago, Mr. Thomas continued the song. “Why Can’t We Live Together”:

No more war, no more war, no more war
Umm, just a little peace in this world
No more war, no more war
All we want is some peace in this world
Everyone wants to live together
Why can’t we live together?

Released on the Glades label, a subsidiary of Miami-based TK Records, the song reached #1 on Billboard’s R&B chart and #3 on the Hot 100 in early 1973, selling over one million copies.

Nowhere has Mr. Thomas been as big a hit as “Why Can’t We Live Together”, but the song has had a lasting impact. Forty-two years later, Drake exemplified it. “Helpline Bling” The hit about late-night cell phone calls from an ex-girlfriend that peaked at #1 on the Billboard rap chart and #2 on the Hot 100.

“Snoop Dogg had the opportunity to use his kicks, Dre kicks, all these new kicks,” Mr. Thomas He told the Miami New Times in 2018. “He went back that far… and used my original.”

It has been covered by artists, including “Why Can’t We Live Together.” Simple, Joan Osborne, Santana, Steve Winwood and Iggy PopHe recorded with jazz organist Lonnie Smith for Mr. Smith’s 2021 album “Breathe”.

Mr. Thomas died Friday at a hospital in Miami. He was 77 years old.

His wife, Lillie (Brown) Thomas, said the cause was cancer.

Timothy Earle Thomas was born on November 13, 1944, in Evansville, Ind. His father, Richard, was a minister, and his mother, Gwendolyn (Maddox) Thomas, was a housewife. He told Blues & Soul magazine that when he was 10, he played the organ at his father’s church. “I always had a good ear for music” said. “I was one of 12 kids and most of them were musical, but I guess I pushed a little harder.”

After graduating from high school in 1962, he spent a week working at the Stan Kenton summer music clinic at Indiana University, Bloomington, whose teachers included saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and trumpeter Donald Byrd.

While attending Lane College in Jackson, Tenn., from which he would graduate with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1966, Mr. Thomas recorded several songs for the Goldwax label in Memphis and was a session musician on Sun and Stax Records.

Even while pursuing her music career, she has worked as director of financial aid at Lane and vice president of development at Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, Texas, and Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens.

He later shifted his focus to teaching. He became choirmaster at Miami Norland High in 1993 and taught music at Shadowlawn Elementary School in Miami from 1996 to 2005. She earned a master’s degree in mental health counseling from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale in 1997.

In addition to his wife, he was survived by Mr. Thomas’ daughters Tamara Wagner-Marion and Li’Tina Thomas; sons Tremayne and Travis; 12 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; sisters Diane Winton, Mary Davis, and Rev. Velma Thomas; and his brothers Ray, Kenneth, Roland, Jerome and Rev. Jeffery Thomas.

More than a dozen of Mr. Thomas’s songs hit the Hot R&B chart Between 1973 and 1984, however, the huge success of “Why Can’t We Live Together” made it a one-shot wonder. And he understood that it is difficult to repeat the success of his megahit.

He remembered asking once. Henry StoneThe co-founder of TK Records thought about what the problem was.

“Timmy, your biggest problem was that what you said was so profound that you would never be able to back it up,” Mr. Thomas said, remembering his speech to Spin magazine. “I thought, ‘You know, this is so hard,’ I said. … ‘ After that I had some good regional records, but nothing worldwide.”



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