Tomorrow Never Comes

Tomorrow Never Comes had the kind of mid-'60s music that's never gotten too much critical attention, perhaps because it was simultaneously so mainstream in tone yet too eclectic to easily classify. Still recording in Texas under the production of Huey P. Meaux, B.J. Thomas sang diverse material that blended varying degrees of pop, rock, country, soul, and swamp pop. Stylistically it's an impressive mixture, and Thomas's voice is pleasantly strong though not remarkably expressive or distinctive. However, none of the songs — largely written by his early associate Mark Clarron (who also helped with the arrangements) — were all that special, though they were okay. None of them were hits, either, though "Daddy" is a dripping-sentimental gender rewrite of his mid-1966 hit single "Mama." That's a somewhat strange cut, as is "Plain Jane," a song about a girl who commits suicide after a prank fake invitation to the prom. So is "The Rains Came," which is the same Meaux song that the Sir Douglas Quintet had a raucous Tex-Mex stomping hit with, but which here gets an unrecognizably slow ballad arrangement that changes the melody substantially as well.