Tom Jones International

We added the photo at left (by Soren Solkaer/Starbird) in the hope it’ll entice you to read this post. Thanks in advance!

If you look on the sidebar at right, you may notice two new features (which should have been here from the start). At the very top is a new About TJI.com button. Click on it and you’ll find: FAQs, Site Rules, our legal Disclaimer and info “About Ellen & Ursula.”

The second feature is this:

Many of you know we were hesitant to do this but site visitors have actually suggested it to us. We love doing the site, but it costs us time and money. We’re sure you understand.




Thank you,




— Ellen & Ursula

In a lovely phone interview Sunday morning with Red Dragon Radio in South Wales, Tom had some news: He will work some songs from 24 Hours into his Las Vegas show and, after he finishes the Las Vegas run in mid-November, he says he’ll be coming back to the UK before Christmas and then, next year, onto the European Continent.

Tom also talks about Amy Winehouse, tattoos, sleep, his Las Vegas show (and Las Vegas), the “great restaurants at the MGM,” what else — if anything — he wants to do and lots more.

It is a lovely interview — perfect for a Sunday morning (when it was broadcast).

Red Dragon Radio Interview Part 1 • Red Dragon Radio Interview Part 2

Thanks to mharding for sending it. Really good to hear from you again.

First, some TJI.com business: We’re placing the final print order for the 2009 Fan Calendar tomorrow, so we need any calendar orders by 1 p.m. PDT Monday.

This is just one of the pages and, as you can see, the painting on the left is singular and the photo on the right is an onstage Tom so many fans k ow so well. There are lots of offstage candids and the photos go from 1965 to 2008. Each month has some significant dates in Tom’s career and, in a word, the calendar is unique and eminently collectible. To order, click the appropriate button at right — US or outside US — and, if you have any questions, please href="http://tomjonesintl.com/wp-admin/post.php#" mce_href="http://tomjonesintl.com/wp-admin/post.php#">email us..

---

This is from 24 Hours and is used the soundtrack of FIFA 09 video game. (“FIFA” stands for the “Fédération Internationale de Football Association or the International Federation of Association Football.”) The soundtrack features 42 songs from 21 countries. Feels Like Music is one of them.

Not a 24 Hours favorite of ours, but it is really high-energy fun.

Feels Like Music (Junkie Xl Remix)

---

A check of amazon.com (USA) finds 24 Hours at #1,241 on the Bestseller in Music list. Considering that the CD hasn’t been promoted a lot here and there is no single, that is pretty good. We expect it to go up very quickly once awareness spreads.




At amazon.co.uk (Great Britain) it’s at #322. With only airplay and nothing released yet — almost one month before being released — again, it’s pretty good and, as in the US, we expect it to go up very quickly once awareness spreads.

On Jools Holland’s taped Friday night show, Tom sang an electrifying, theatrical version of 24 Hours Live. It is, in a word, stunning.

Then, he and Jools meet at the piano, talk about the new CD and sing Think.

If you have a problem viewing these videos here, go to the TJI.com Video Library.

Thanks again to our friend The Flash.

---

Here — at long last! — is Tom’s version of The Hitter If you read this site you know we are — or, at least, Ellen is — Springsteen fans. And we could find only five people who have covered him and all of them did Born to Run. He may not be a great singer, but Bruce Springsteen is a unique artist and his songs (like Dylan’s) read like poetry. It takes a brave, secure and thoughtful artist to cover him. Tom Jones is that artist. We love this.




You can see Bruce Springsteen performing The Hitter live in Bologna, Italy in 2005. He explains the song: “This is a song about a young man, leaves home, goes to the war, becomes a champion, comes back home, shorts himself, cheats himself. The song is a conversation between him and his mother toward the end of his life.”




Please remember you can pre-order 24 Hours by clicking the link at right.

This article — or selected excerpts — has appeared in a range of newspapers across the USA. Excellent!

---

Tom Jones gets back to basics on “24 Hours”

Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:52pm EDT/By Jeff Vrabel/Reuters/Billboard

CHICAGO (Billboard) – Pop star Tom Jones’ new album is the 68-year-old’s first U.S. release in 15 years and, practically speaking, his American comeback — in the studio, anyway; he still performs more than 200 shows a year.

“I’ve been thinking about this album for a long time now,” Jones says of “24 Hours,” due November 25 on S-Curve Records. “I’ve had success worldwide, but with albums that were never released in America.” (His last album, 2000′s rock-covers collection “Reload,” moved 5 million copies in Europe, but labels found its roster of British-leaning duet partners off-putting, so it never came out stateside.)

Unlike artists like Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, Jones isn’t using the comeback pedestal to deliver a stark, acoustic, depth-of-the-soul thing; this is a characteristically splashy, bombastic, large-sounding platter of future-retro swagger in the vein of the Amy Winehouse-led throwback-soul movement. (It was produced by British duo Future Cut, which has been behind recent tracks by Kate Nash, Lily Allen and Estelle.)

Witness these couplets from “Sugar Daddy,” a vaguely dirty come-on at the record’s center: “I been singing this song before you were born”; “I’ve got male intuition/I’ve got sexual ambition”; “You don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.” The best part: The Welsh singer got U2′s Bono and the Edge to write that for him after a night of drinking in a Dublin pub.

In Jones’ mind, the key to the recording was keeping sharp watch on the balance among his progressive ambitions, the music’s retro feel and the substantial weight of his reputation, and he says records like Winehouse’s gave him confidence that his plan was solid.

“It was reassuring,” he says. “When (“Back to Black”) came out, I thought, ‘It can be done. People do want it.’ It confirmed what we were doing.”

SETTING THE RULES

What he was doing was setting a series of ground rules, chief among them that the record wouldn’t be a simple nostalgia trip. He also took a greater role in defining the sound and, for the first time in decades, in the songwriting.

(more…)

When we posted the radio interview from Germany, for some reason Seasons didn’t get posted. Our fault.

Anyway, this song is as serious as 24 Hours but as Tom says, it’s deeply personal. It’s reflective, lovely. Slow, but not sad. Bear in mind — and this is important — the quality is nowhere near what it will be on the actual CD as this is a recording from the internet with a few seconds pause before it begins.

At any rate, here is Seasons.

A wonderful European fan named Anna wrote us that Tom was to be interviewed on the radio in Cologne, Germany, this evening at 9 p.m. local time

We heard from Anne Thursday night (Friday morning in Europe and she wrote: “They played 5 songs during the interview. I had to cut out 24 Hours.

This morning they played If He Should Ever Leave You and said that Tom drank a glass of red wine before the interview, wore a blue suit with blue polo shirt and they talked about the new law in Germany, that you are not allowed to smoke in restaurants any more. They also said three of the songs they played were “world-premieres” and played on the radio for the very first time at all.”

We didn’t post a couple of the songs, but we’ll have them for you sometime tomorrow.

To read what’s on their website and to hear the six-part interview, just click to (more…)

Since we missed this last week and we want to highlight the article from Vanity Fair posted below — and there’s little new here — you can either go to the Music Week website or click here to (more…)

Each month at the very back of Vanity Fair a world-famous celebrity answers the Proust Questionnaire. Each month the questions remain the same for each responder.

World leaders, authors, actors and singers — anyone deemed newsworthy or important has done so over the years. As you can see, in November it’s Tom’s turn.

Why, you may well ask, are we so excited? Why have we not taken exception to a couple of the adjectives used to describe Sir Tom? Well, besides the fact that VF is a magazine we read every month, this interview is a reflection of (we think) the New York PR company working with S-Curve Records really doing its job. When you are in VF you (pick one): have arrived/are happening/are important. And, most of all, when you’re Sir Tom Jones, it also means the right people in the arts and entertainment and the media are reading about you. This is long overdue and we are thrilled! (For the record, Vanity Fair has a long tradition of running caricatures and it’s considered an honor to be the subject of one.)

The answers are pure, mostly unadulterated Tom Jones. Anyone who’s ever heard him ad lib on stage or has spent a few minutes talking to him will recognize that. And, for the record, we’d bet he’s just fine in the shower.

---

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Being in good health.

What is your greatest fear?

Prison.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Being late.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Bullishness.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Fine wines.

What is your current state of mind?

Naughty.

On what occasion do you lie?

I don’t—maybe a fib, but not a lie.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

Thinning hair.

Which living person do you most despise?

I don’t despise anyone living.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Understanding.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Sense of humor.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Any and most swearwords.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

The ability to sing.

When and where were you happiest?

When I was finally released out of bed, at age 14, after being confined for two years with tuberculosis.

Which talent would you most like to have?

To play the piano.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

To have one that looks good in the shower.

(more…)

OK, we blew it yesterday when, as UKFriend pointed out, we only posted half of the interview Jools Holland did with Tom.




So, here’s almost the entire interview on video in two parts: Part I and, now, Part 2.




At any rate, the video seems to lack 18 seconds (remember the missing 18 minutes that figured in Watergate?) so here’s the 18-seconds-longer audio.

Sorry for any confusion. The video is posted in its entirety at the TJI.com video library.