Tom Jones International

You see it happen often on stage while Tom is performing: He walks to the stool near the drum kit and takes a drink of water and, often, pops something into his mouth.

That “something” is a Vocalzone, a throat pastille developed, according to the Vocalzone website (which has a terrific sound effect) “for Enrico Caruso (left) the renowned Italian tenor in the early part of the 20th Century. The creator was a chemist in Carmarthen, a small town in the South West of Wales and the product remained in the family for many subsequent years. Vocalzone is the only product in the world that is uniquely suited to helping singers maintain their clarity of voice, and the product’s success over the years has been reflected in the consistently fine performances of the stars who use it.”




It may have a positive medicinal effect, but Vocalzone is a sweet. The website notes, “Vocalzone is a pastille specially formulated for voice care. The active ingredients of the pastilles are menthol, peppermint oil, liquorice extract and myrrh tincture. The product also contains sucrose, liquid glucose and crystal gum, fat and liquorice extract.”

Vocalzones are recommended for people who suffer throat irritation from singing, talking and smoking. They cost $4.99 a pack and are available over-the-counter in the UK and online elsewhere. The product is being recommended by the manufacturer for people who sing karaoke, too.

In addition to Sir Tom, other well-known performers who use them include Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics, Cerys Matthews, Vince Neil and Trent Reznor.

The world of Tom Jones may span many thousands of miles but it’s not really that large.

Thus it is that we heard from a friend in Europe who knows someone who……well, you get the idea.

What we heard is that Tom and the gang are all headed to the UK today to play a wedding in England this weekend. Then, back to the USA on Monday (at least, we think, for most of them).

This got us thinking — after we tried to imagine what it would take to have Tom Jones play your wedding — that, if either of us were to have another wedding and could have Tom entertain there, the one song we’d want him to play — and we’ve posted a few seconds here — is the Anniversary Song.

He always cites Al Jolson as one of his earliest influences and this was a Jolson standard. Tom recorded it on the album Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow in 1977. Today it is still breathtaking in it’s eloquent, quiet beauty.

These photos were taken of Tom performing in 1977. If you look real close you can see the then-common glam make-up.

2003 was a very good year for Tom Jones.

Five years ago he was honored at the Brits with a prestigious award for Lifetime Achievement (photos here of him performing after the award was presented).

In the US his CD Reloaded was getting positive reviews with its mix of old hit remixes and stuff from the Reload duets CD he’d released in the UK in 1999. And Tom was tapped to perform the theme song for Duck Dodgers, a new show on the Cartoon Network that would have millions of children recognizing and being drawn to (no pun) that amazing voice.




For that US CD release, the short-form interview below was published:

Fast Chat: All You’d Ever Want

By Lorraine Ali | NEWSWEEK/Nov 17, 2003 Issue

Tom Jones has a new CD, Reloaded, an upcoming cameo on the Cartoon Network — and was featured in Scorsese’s blues series. He talked to NEWSWEEK’s Lorraine Ali about his newest moment in the spotlight.

Reloaded is a mix of greatest hits and new songs?


I’ve done duets with young bands that were hits in Europe. The songs represent different eras, but the most important is It’s Not Unusual. That started it all in 1965. Without that hit, I’d still be looking for one.


Why were you included in the blues series?


My foundation, my style, is really the blues. But once I did It’s Not Unusual and What’s New, Pussycat? people knew me as a pop singer.


Do you like today’s pop?


I can’t say I’m a fan. They’re all about keeping their dance moves up to snuff. Though some people might say Tom Jones is a Vegas act, I’m less Vegas than a lot of new acts. I just have my band. No dancing girls.


Except for those in the audience, and they’re often screaming.


Yes, I must say it happens.


You recently teamed up with art rockers the Flaming Lips to make a theme song for Duck Dodgers.


Right, and now they’ve made me into a cartoon where I play myself. Daffy Duck borrows my voice to win this talent contest. The only problem is, when I go to sing, I’ve got Daffy’s voice.


You’re going to have nightmares about that.


Love, I already have.

And, if you haven’t already heard it, here’s a minute of the Duck Dodgers Intro Theme (The Duck Dodgers fight crime in the 24th-and-one-half century) and to the right is how the cartoon Tom looked in the show he mentioned.

By the way, if you do not have the Red White and Blues CDor the Red White and Blues DVD you should. Tom is amazing to hear and see.

Tom’s run at the MGM Grand ends tonight and, for us at least, it’s been a real eye-opener. We’re still stunned by some of the fans we met and some we didn’t meet, but whom we saw. It was great to meet people we knew from the jtv.com list. And, by “stunned,” we don’t just mean in a bad way, although we do mean that, too. We’ve already discussed fan behavior here way too much this week and don’t want to do it again.

If you saw Tom anytime in the last two weeks and haven’t commented (or, if you have and want to add something), please do so.

Meanwhile, we want to share the video below in case you haven’t seen it on youtube. It’s a demo film for the Bell and Howell Filmosound 16mm Movie Projector (anyone remember those?). It features Sammy singing Climb Every Mountain and then, along with Tom, performing Scarlet Ribbons, a song made famous by Harry Belafonte. We did some research and concluded, since they discuss the TV show Hullabaloo, which ran in the 1965-66 season, and Davis had his own show in 1966 that, in this clip, Tom was a guest on Davis’ show.

We also think, based on the brief glimpse of Tom finishing up his solo on the show, that the prison bars we see mean — unless he sang Jailhouse Rock — he was singing Green Green Grass of Home, which was released in late 1966.

We think this is fun and want to thank Dre for sending it on.

After Tom’s new solo CD comes out this year, we hear there’s something else that is also very special on the horizon: Tom has recorded Sam & Dave’s R & B classic I Thank You (which he did so fabulously in the Loaded: The Brassed Up Funked Out Club Sides ) for Tower of Power’s new CD of R & B covers.

According to a spokesperson who works with TOP, the CD is set for release in January, 2009. As we speak it is being mixed.

Joss Stone is among the other artists on the CD.

Tom and TOP toured together in 2005, even playing in Oakland, CA, the funk band’s hometown. The shows were great — lots of fun — and the CD should be the same.

Of course, we must point out that Bill Churchville and Herman Matthews, both of whom are such outstanding musicians in Tom’s backup band, are TOP alumni and others who have been with TOP are playing equally prestigious gigs.

OK, maybe it’s because we haven’t more than one or two days since late May with a temperature below 100º and we’re grumpy. But, once again, we have to ask these questions that we know can probably never be adequately answered. So:

Yesterday morning a gi-normous gossip site in the US — a redoubtable bastion of taste and integrity — posted photos of Tom in his cabana at the MGM swimming pool. They weren’t flattering and, in a world with a mote of fairness, would not have even been posted because they clearly caught a man who didn’t know he was being photographed.

But, sadly, they were.

Now we’ve all seen photos of Tom in a bathing suit — that’s nothing new. And as was rightfully pointed out on this gossip site by someone commenting on the post, Tom is a European and European men have been wearing these bathing suits forever. Attractive? Sometimes. Is a person who wears one even though he might make a better choice, asking for criticism? Sure.

But what gets us are the alleged fans who say absolutely awful things. We see it waaay to frequently on this site. You, dear reader, do not, because we moderate our site, employing our rule that holds the only posts fit for posting are those with a modicum of politeness. That doesn’t mean no criticism. It means fairness.

For our amusement — or, perhaps, because we cannot believe what some people calling themselves “fans” take the time to submit for posting — we keep a log of stuff we will not post. People write horrible things. They post this garbage on some discussion boards and forums about him. It happens. We don’t understand why. We’re not especially virtuous. We just think Tom should be treated with respect.

Now, back to that gossip site (If you haven’t seen it, find it yourself. We won’t help.) In response to the photos, lots of Tom’s fans rushed to praise him. But the one that got us called herself “Monique.” She said, in essence, “He looks terrible….he should ‘preserve this illusion’ of looking like he did 30 or 40 years ago by wearing different trunks….” and even had the chutzpah to comment on where he should wear what.

But then, this bimbo says “to” Tom, “I’ll see you at the show tonight! Rowr!”

She’s paying to see him and, yet, says this stuff?

Then, someone even posted the gossip site photos on Tom’s official forum and, when criticized by another fan, responded, (for clarity we fixed the punctuation and added the word she left out) “Having met Tom several times, I doubt he would care [about] being photographed at the MGM swimming pool if he did, knowing Tom, he would not have been there.”

How does she know? Does someone who has “met” Tom “know” him? Is she qualified to read his mind? Where’s the respect? Yes, just a couple of weeks ago we were sent a photo Tom posed for with fans while he was wearing a bathing suit. But he knew the photo was being taken.

With fans like this Tom Jones does not need enemies.

Anyone possessing any idea of why so-called fans behave like this, please let us know. Until we get an explanation, we just have to believe based on what these people say that it’s obsession turning ugly — perhaps due to jealousy or some imagined slight. Whatever, it is kind of creepy and we believe the rest of Tom’s fans are really fortunate that — in the light of these people — he sees that most do not feel like this and, so, continues to interact with them.

Las Vegas last night had to be the best town for music anywhere. There was a slew of shows around town as always, but the two best had to be, at 8 p.m., Tom Jones at the MGM and, at 11:30 p.m., Herman Matthews and Friends at the Bootlegger Bistro.

Tom, by the way, is back to wearing colored jackets (last night it was white) and is still having a ball onstage. The audience clearly loves Tom and, again, new fans every night set foot on the road to being long-time, long-lasting fans. Sir Tom is a phenomenon.

Tom closes at the MGM Wednesday night and then, we’d guess, the focus will be on the new CD. We’re so looking forward to hearing all the music but, meanwhile, there are four more shows to go and we’re anxious to hear what you think.

Last night, too, was the second show for Herman Matthews and Friends at the Bootlegger Bistro. It looks like this will become a Las Vegas tradition for the guys when they’re here with Tom doing, as Herman calls it, their “day job.”

Before you can understand what they accomplished last night, you have to know a bit about the Bootlegger Bistro.

The restaurant has been in the Perry family for decades. Al and Maria Perry’s daughter, former Nevada Lieutenant Governor Lorraine Hunt Bono and her son Ron Mancuso — a terrific musician — now own it. In a town that was once hopping 24/7, the Bootlegger is one of the few places you can eat, drink and gamble all the time. There are few other choices for that and, sadly, they seem to be limited to a collection of bad hotel coffee shops.

But the Bootlegger has that indefinable ambiance — that atmosphere of vintage Las Vegas — that’s fast disappearing.

The main dining room where Herman Matthews and Friends played (in the photo here) is well- equipped for shows in a warm, casual way. There’s no stage, just an empty space at one end of the room for musicians and instruments. Although of course the dining room is there for patrons to use to eat, if you don’t want a full meal while you’re being entertained, that’s OK. You can just have a pizza (outstanding!) or dessert or just a drink or, from outside the dining room, to just watch the show. You can sit at the bar or line up along the walls with or without a drink. It’s all very open and very friendly.

And, of course, because this is Las Vegas, you can see all sorts of people there, including a host of celebrities who make the Bootlegger a regular stop. (Oddly — or not — the people from The Sopranos often hang here.)

Last night’s crowd included a few fans who, we suspect, came to see if Tom would show up, a boatload of musicians and singers, and plain ol’ fans of great music. The group played from 11:30 p.m. to around 2 a.m. and it was a blast. There’s something so energizing and revealing to see musicians playing their own music — music they love to play — and, if you’ve seen them elsewhere, playing something different from what you’re used to.

Herman, we must note, was a terrific host. Between sets he talked to everyone and made sure they were having a grand time.

Herman Matthews and Friends at the Bootlegger Bistro will play in Las Vegas whenever Tom is in town, just as they are do frequently the Los Angeles area when they’re not on the road with Tom. For their schedule you can check the calendar at Herman’s website.




Thanks, Sharon, for the show photos. The band photo shows (from left) Brian Monroney on guitar, Kevin Richardson on trumpet, who sat in for one number and, of course, Herman. It was too dark to photograph the rest of the band.

Today, August 16, 2008, is 31 years since Elvis Presley died. Recently, Tom Jones was asked if he’d ever met anyone whom it had been his lifelong dream to meet. Without even a nanosecond’s hesitation, he responded, “Yes, Elvis.”

Just like Tom Jones is a huge Elvis fan, we’ve always found it interesting how so many of today’s Tom Jones fans were Elvis fans, too, knowing his music as we know Tom’s.

In the late 1990s, Tom talked to the BBC’s Tim Sebastian on Hard Talk about Elvis.

In 1965 when it was first written, Red West, a member of the “Memphis Mafia” called to Elvis’ attention the song Green Green Grass of Home, thinking it might be a good song for Elvis to record. He was told it was “too country.” Jerry Lee Lewis put it on his album, Country Songs for City Folk, where Tom heard it and decided to record it. (Remember Tom’s story about buying the album? — “I went into the Colony Record Shop in New York….” The shop is still there, at 1619 Broadway.)