Tom Jones International

From the Toledo (Ohio) Blade, Sunday, January 5, 1969 comes this article previewing Tom’s first TV series. I love the quote about money and am reminded of a literary conversation. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The rich are different from you and me.” Ernest Hemingway replied, “Yes, they have more money.” Sometimes those material things are important. And, think about it, when was the last time you heard (or used) the word “dig” the way it’s used here? And, Buddy Greco? Ah, the good ol’ days.

“Special” By Tom Jones Forerunner To His Series

NEW YORK — His hair is black as the coal his father hewed out of the mines for so many years. His eyes are brown. And he’s a handsome six-footer with the physique and muscles of a boxer.

One day, soon perhaps, he will emerge as a he-man movie star.

For the present, Tom JOnes is a singer — but a singer with a difference. That difference will be seen on This Is Tom Jones, a special starring the British singing sensation Thursday, January 9 at 7:30 p.m.

The special in which the Welsh entertainer gets able variety assistance from humorist Dick Cavell, dancer Juliet Prowse, pop group “The Fifth Dimension” and French chanteuse Mireille Mathieu, is an intriguing preface to a forthcoming series starring Jones.

Beginning February 7 at 7:30 pm, he will unveil The Tom Jones Show, a weekly up-tempo variety hour with the accent on contemporary entertainment.

It has been written of Jones that “In his full writhing agony of song he looks as if he could eat the average pop group complete with guitars, for breakfast.”

Yes, when you meet tom Jnes, you find him to be quietly relaxed, easy-going and with a nonchalant sense of humor. His manner and his voice are much gentler than his professional image would suggest.

Yet Jones appears to take everything in stride. He has catapaulted himself into the big money, but he is quite sincere when he says that money, as such, means nothing whatever to him except for the material things it brings him.

More than anything else, he likes singing and he says, simply:

“If I didn’t have the voice I have, I would never have the nerve to be a singer. Some of them nowadays have such small voices I wonder whatever put it in their heads to sing at all.”

---

The Eugene (Oregon) Register-Guard on January 9, 1969, said, “If you’ve never seen Jones, he can best be described as a Welsh version of Frankie Laine and Buddy Greco singing the music of the New Generation….Like any special of this sort, if you dig the star, you’ll enjoy the show.”