To all of our friends in Houston and on the Gulf Coast: We wish you a weakened storm and a quick one. Please know that other fans — other of your “Friends Through Tom” — are thinking of you. Pob Lwc!
On June 6th, we posted the first of a few stories about Sir Tom’s attendance at a charity gala in Vancouver, BC, for the Face the World Foundation.
We titled our first post “Some Tom Jones Charity Work: See If You Can Find The Typo In The Story (If It Was A Typo!)”
Sure enough, it wasn’t a typo. (Y’know, a journalist can tell those things!)
We just heard from the writer, Catherine Barr, and we thought we’d pass her message on to you. (And she’s right. Your comments were funny.)
Barr sent it as a comment but since it referred to a story posted months ago, we thought we’d use it as a post so people would see it and note that we’re grateful for her communication. It really has nothing to do with Tom but, here it is:
“Hello everyone. I am most impressed by your comments.
“I remember when I wrote the column. My editor and I had a discussion about whether readers would catch the pun or think it merely a Freudian slip.
“For those of you who know Vancouver, or this party, it is attended by the crowd who spends a lot of money to look their best. If you see the gowns you would most certainly agree that many of the gals are putting it all out there to be seen. The photo, when seen in context with the rest of the photo page as published, makes it obvious that I was going for the gag line and that it was not a misprint.
“In fact, you might giggle to know, that due to the amount of plastic surgery that takes place in these circles, the line originally read:
“The well-”healed” and breast-dressed crowd . . . .
“In discussing it with my editors, we felt it to be too cruel for publication.”
— Cat
Here, the janitor saves the day when This Is Tom Jones goes country. Bad video, but fun. Enjoy!
Thanks, Dre.
Please take this in the context of the time when it was written. Some language that was acceptable then is not acceptable now. The photo is of a long-haired Tom in a flower child phase. By the way, don’t you think it must be weird to have your every move observed and reported? And he’s been subject to that since the time more than 40 years ago when only a few press outlets were intrusive. A haircut as news? Wow!
Long Hair, Wailing ‘Out’ Says Singer
By BILL BYERS/Wire Service/October 29, 1965
NEW YORK – So, What’s New Pussycat?
Well, Tom Jones, the 25-year-old, lanky Welsh singer is not quite as shaggy as he used to be. He has had a hair cut.
“All that shoulder length hair is now on its way out,” said Jones on a recent visit here. “Shorter bobs go hand in hand with the trend in popular music. You can expect a lot less wailing and more ballads.”
When Jones’ recording of the wailing Pussycat was one of the top 10 he had more hair than his wife had curlers for. But when he started his new brand of singing – soft, lush romantic airs somewhat in the style of Al Hibler [sic]— he decided to have his mop sheared.
With Sullivan
“Besides it was causing me a lot of trouble,” said the singer who has been booked for five Ed Sullivan appearances this season. “Once in Chicago a delegation of armed forces vets pounced on me and were ready to punch me in the mouth. All because of my long hair. They kept yelling if I were in Viet Nam I’d get a hair cut.”
Like many Welshman, Jones, a husky 6-footer, has a quick temper and was ready to brawl with the vets but didn’t because he was afraid he would be kicked out of the country.
“They were a pretty ridiculous lot. Drunk out of their minds and behaving like a bunch of children. It wouldn’t have been worth the trouble,” recalled the singer.
Near-Riot
During the same tour, this time in a southern town, he also had a close call when he went into a cafe for a cup of coffee with a Negro musician. A riot almost ensued, and he was hissed and spat at and called a “dirty beatnik.”
However, the singer claims the incidents weren’t the vital factors in turning his mop over to the clippers.
“The long hair was just an attention-getter for the type of songs I used to sing. Tunes like What’s New Pussycat? are made of gimmicky sounds. And to sell them it helps for you to have an off-beat — yes, a gimmicky look. With regular ballads you don’t need to be so shaggy.”
From Music Week, the UK trade weekly, comes this story about S-Curve Records (this is their new website). We love what S-Curve founder Steve Greenberg (right top photo) and others say about Tom and this CD:
“Tom Jones has now delivered a record that a lot of people have wanted him to make for some time. There is a huge audience across all ages that would appreciate this album. It’s very honest and soulful with a production that allows it to sound contemporary.” They are sentiments echoed by Greenberg. “It was important to us that Tom made a record that people who had never paid much attention to him could fall in love with, while people that have always loved him would still love.
“We knew if he could get both of those audiences, we’d hit a home run.”
We note, too, that the CD is “as yet untitled.” Also, we met Future Cut (Photo, below right; they are from Manchester, and are thus described as “Mancunian” in the story below) at Tom’s opening night last March. In fact, the guys signed the card we took around the audience to sign and then gave to Tom to celebrate his 40th anniversary in Las Vegas. At any rate, we’re looking forward to lots more positive publicity for the CD and, thus, for Sir Tom.
11:59 |Wednesday September 3, 2008/By Stuart Clarke/Music Week
Originally home to Baha Men and Joss Stone in the US, record label S-Curve is poised to return through EMI with big releases from Tom Jones and Little Jackie. The time to relaunch has never been better, label boss Steve Greenberg tells Music Week
Tom Jones and Little Jackie will spearhead a dynamic new era for S-Curve, as new albums from the pair kick off the second incarnation of the label.
Jones’s as-yet-untitled set will be released in October and boasts production from UK duo Future Cut and the team behind Joss Stone’s multi-platinum debut, Mike Mangini and S-Curve CEO Steve Greenberg.
Meanwhile, Little Jackie, a new project by little-known Brooklyn native Imani Coppola, will release their debut album in September.
For Greenberg, who took time out from the label he founded to serve as Columbia Records president between 2005 and 2007, the fact that a US-based independent label (with distribution through EMI) which has effectively been inactive for three years can get up and running with an artist of Jones’s stature reflects the broader changes that have happened within the music business since he called time on S Curve’s first incarnation in 2005.
However, in the UK Jones does already have a history with independents, including Gut and V2.
“The world has changed so much since we did this the first time,” he says.
(more…)
Like Elvis and The Beatles before him, Tom Jones hit New York like a cyclone. Girls went wild, waiting at his hotel, lining up for hours to see his show. The press of the day, not as used to this stuff as it is today, took lots of notice. The first item is a small one, from a brief stop Tom did in New York (possibly for a Sullivan show). The second and third from 13 months later are self-explanatory. Note what he says about the attendance at Tom’s Copa shows. Kind of reminiscent of the lyrics to Younger Days, isn’t it?
First, this note from April 12, 1968 in Earl Wilson’s column in The New York Post, called The Midnight Earl
Singer Tom Jones reports about $300 was stolen from his bedroom in a west side hotel (“The night before that they’d have gotten $1,500,” he says. ” — but my wife went shopping”)
May 26, 1969/The Midnight Earl
Tom Jones’ Copa premiere was (a) frantic affair that required a flying wedge of waiters to whisk him off the stage and keep his adoring fans from him. Joe Namath brought 48 guests. “Rhinestone Danny” Stardella* had 50, and ABC-TV boss Elton Rule brought 10. The two-week engagement is completely sold out.
*Danny Stardella owned Danny’s Hideaway, a very popular New York City club at the time.
June 2, 1969/The Midnight Earl
Tom Jones fans are lining up at 3 p.m. to catch him at the Copacabana’s 8 p.m. show. Due to his ABC TV show, records, the prom season and females who want to pull his clothes off, he is a bigger smash than ANY star who’s ever appeared there.
This is certainly not a great photo, but we love it because it’s so expressive. Tom was clearly caught by the camera in the middle of a sentence, a thought. We came across it in a story totally unrelated to Tom being on a red carpet — where he almost certainly was when this was taken.
So, that started us thinking about how we would caption this photo.
Some of our ideas:
“Who, me?”
Or, perhaps,
“They do what at a bris?”
What do you think? Just for fun, please tell us your caption.
The items below are from It Happened Last Night by Earl Wilson in The New York Post. When our friend, AF, was researching some really important stuff online, she found these. We thank her.
Earl Wilson was a syndicated gossip columnist covering Broadway and New York. On the east coast in his time he had the clout of the LA biggies, Hedda and Louella. But, from all reports he was not, like them, feared and loathed. He was instead reputed to be a pretty nice guy. (You can tell that from his writing.) We love the colorful, Runyonesque kind of words he used, like “ringsiding.” Sadly, that kind of colorful, descriptive languatge is gone today, buried in slickness of People and OK.Wilson’s trademarks were his talk about his “BW” (“beautiful wife”) and his sign-off, “That’s Earl, brother.”
It was Earl Wilson who first told the world (well, his column was syndicated across the US) about the first panty-flinging woman at the Copa. The idea, as we know, caught on. Luckily, the throwing of ice cubes did not. (This photo is from a Milwaukee show in 1986.) Here’s that item:
(Wednesday, June 4, 1969) — Speaking of living life, a woman fan of Tom Jones threw her panties at the singing star while he was on the floor at the Copacabana…”
Two days later Wilson did a wrap-up of Tom’s run at the Copa (“shoot deer in the place,” of course, means the club is empty):
(June 6, 1969) Earl Wilson: Napkins Sail After Tom
“It’s ridiculous!” Tom Jones kept saying — and it was.
The Copacabana’ll be able to straighten out its napkin supply tonight after he departs following two unbelievable weeks.
Every night, young, pretty women flung their napkins at the hiptwisting, finger-snapping, 6-foot, 28-year-old Welsh coal miner singer when he mopped his brow, hoping he’d fling the napkins back so they could frame them.
Ringsiding there this morning, I got zinged in the ear by (a) napkin and kissed by a girl who mistook me for Tom (we’re both very handsome).
Several girls insisted that the rugged-looking curling-haired Tom kiss them. Sometimes, guys in the back have flung ice cubes at the girls, causing a sleet storm.
“Last year, in February when I was here, maybe in one day two people knew who I was and said hello to me,” Tom told me. “Now, due to TV: (his ABC Show) “they know…”
And so, instead of “being able to shoot deer in the place,” as the night club saying goes, the Copacabana had crowds in line at 3 p.m., people offering $50 or $100 premium for tables. Tom being taken on and off the floor by a flying wedge, using freight elevators and secret stairways.
(more…)
The Los Angeles Times’ fall music preview has a bit about Tom’s new CD. (For all of you non-Americans, “AARP” is the American Association of Retired Persons.) We note with sadness that they say it’s his first album of all-new material in 15 years because, in the US, it is. Neither Reload nor Mr. Jones was released here and were only available as imports. But, we’re happy he’s getting press on the new work. Although we’ve all heard it’s to be called Gemini, and Tom has said in a TV interview that all the songwriters are female, this report differs. And, knowing Bono and The Edge are involved if it’s not all women, makes us hope it is not. Anyway, hope the CD gets similar notice in other “Fall Prevews,” like EW, People, Rolling Stone and the prestigious newspapers and magazines that always do that sort of thing.
AARP Adonises
In pop, it’s never too late to get ladies screaming. Just ask Neil Diamond — on the heels of his bestselling, Rick-Rubin-produced CD Home Before Dark, the man behind I Am . . . I Said is playing a high-profile three-night L.A. stand. Two nights at the Hollywood Bowl weren’t enough, so he’s following those Oct. 1-2 dates with one Oct. 4 at Staples Center. Diamond isn’t the only graying lion on the prowl. Tom Jones is finalizing tracks for his first collection of all-new material in 15 years. The Welsh wailer is getting help from Bono and the Edge, as well as the English production team Future Cut, which has worked with Lily Allen, Natasha Bedingfield, Dizzee Rascal and other fashionable Brits. The as-yet-untitled effort should hit retail Oct. 21, and Jones will be on tour, charming old fans and new pussycats, after that.
Here’s Tom on Canadian Idol last month singing If He Should Ever Leave You, one of the songs recorded for his new album. We hope you don’t mind that we reposted the photo.
The “It’s More Than Rock ‘n’ Roll” auction has ended in London and Sir Tom’s antique (©1880) pool table was sold for £ 40,000/US $71,180. There were 11 bids and all bidders were present at the auction. The pre-auction estimate was GBP50,000-75,000/USD100,000-150,00.
Lot # 79 was described in the auction catalog as: “A superb quality English Billiard Table of Full Size made c1880 by the firm of ‘Burroughes & Watts, London in the ‘Sheraton Revival’ style of the time. Of finest quality mahogany throughout and complete with the original matching scoreboard/cupboard. Totally original construction with the original slate bed, but now fully restored to a fabulous standard to show this wonderful matching suite off to its best advantage, and supplied with a full complement of accessories of equal quality. This table was owned by the singer Tom Jones from 1967 to 1974 when he lived in the St. Georges Hill Estate, Weybridge, Surrey, England and comes complete with an original She’s A Lady record sleeve from 1971 showing Tom posing alongside the table with the scoreboard/cupboard in the background.”
Lot #94: Joe Meek Archive: The Original Joe Meek Master Tapes, with a pre-auction price estimate of between GBP 250,000 – GBP 300,000, drew seven bids and all bidders were present at the auction. The lot was sold for GBP 170,000.00/approximately US $302,515.00.
The auction catalog noted (with some misspelling): “The recordings included in the sale contain such British stars as David Bowie as singer and sax player with the Konrads Gene Vincent, Denny Laine, Billy Fury, Tom Jones, Jimmy Page Mike Berry, John Leyton Ritchie Blackmore, Jess Conrad, Mitch Mitchell and Screaming Lord Sutch.”
Looking at the auction catalog, it’s clear that something impacted the prices — either they were over-estimates or the worldwide economy impacts even high-end collectors.
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