Fan Fare, What's New, Pussycat?
Here’s where you’ll find TJ photos and stories that don’t fit into any other categories. It is, as its name says, just for fans — and, hopefully, for fun.
A Note On MGM In January; 14 Dates In 21 Days As Tom Tours Australia & New Zealand in February, March
Saturday, November 28th, 2009Note: Tom’s Las Vegas shows, January 21-27, all begin at 7:30 pm.
Between February 21 and March 14, Tom is playing 14 dates in Australia and New Zealand. Venues range from wineries to major arenas. Details are on the TJI page, Where’s Tom & When’s He There? For some reason, all of these dates are listed on TJ.com, but not the MGM gig. There are no ticket links for AU or NZ on TJ.com, but they are on this site. Tickets for some venues are already on sale.
Below are the first three of what’s sure to be many preview articles:
Keeping up with legendary entertainer Tom Jones
Sunday Mail/By Sally Browne/November 29, 2009 12:00am
WHEN Elvis is telling you one thing and Frank Sinatra is telling you another, it’s hard to know who to listen to.
But that’s what it was like for a young Tom Jones when he first made it in the US.
In 1965, when British fever was in full swing, the Welsh singer had his first big hit with It’s Not Unusual – it was No.1 in the UK and top 10 in the US.
Not long after, the former construction worker from Pontypridd got to meet his idols, whom he had watched on TV as a teenager.
He became good friends with Elvis, who took a keen interest in his work.
“I did an album of standards once,” recalls Jones, “and (Elvis) said, ‘We don’t do that, Tom. We leave songs like that to Sinatra.’
“And I said, ‘Well, OK, then.’ And when I was talking to Frank Sinatra, he said, ‘You could be a great jazz singer. You should do more big band stuff.’
“So Elvis was wanting me to be more rock ‘n’ roll and Frank was advising me to sing more swing stuff, but I said, ‘I like it all’. ”
His friendship continued until Presley’s later years. Jones still has a recurring dream where he goes back in time to warn Elvis about his future.
“It was shocking,” he says about Elvis’s death. “I didn’t realise he was that sick. I could see that he was getting heavy, and then he pushed away a lot of people so I couldn’t get to talk to him for the last few years of his life because he wouldn’t answer any of my calls any more.”
For the rest of this article and two similar ones, click here to
The piece of advice Jones remembers Sinatra telling him is about his voice: “Frank Sinatra did tell me not to sing so hard all the time,” he says. “He said because you lose your voice, you’re going to blow it, you’re forcing, so he said relax a little bit more, you’ve got plenty there, you’ve got plenty of volume. You don’t have to prove it every song because you’re going to hurt yourself.”
But at 69 years of age, Jones’s voice has not faded.
Swing or rock ‘n’ roll, pop or dance, Tom Jones has done it all. He has had hits every decade, reinventing himself from a wild boy in tight pants and billowing shirt to a respectable besuited crooner; a Vegas staple and a 50-something sex bomb, recording duets with acts of the day, including The Cardigans, Stereophonics and Mousse T.
And the legendary women’s underwear has kept flying.
Next year Jones returns to Australia — his last tour here was with John Farnham, whom he effectively brought out of retirement.
“We toured together because he had gone out before apparently and said that was going to be his last tour,” he chuckles.
Jones’s Queensland show will be in the elegant surrounds of Sirromet Winery for the Day on the Green concert, where he will be supported by our own swing man David Campbell.
Promoters will give away a free copy of Jones’s latest album 24 Hours with every ticket sold.
Believe it or not, 24 Hours marks the first time the singer has contributed to the songwriting process in his five-decade career.
It was Bono who first sparked the idea of him doing an album of personal songs.
The pair were chatting in Dublin, as superstars do, when the older singer asked the younger if he would write a song for him.
Bono said sure, but that he would like to write something about Tom Jones too. So he asked him a few questions.
“We talked for I don’t know how long,” says Jones. “So he wrote down a lot of stuff that I told him about my life.”
The result is Sugar Daddy, on which Bono and U2 guitarist The Edge guest-star.
Jones certainly has plenty of stories to tell. Never is about his relationship to a career in music, and The Road is about his wife, whom he married as a teenager in Wales. While Jones has lived the superstar life and partaken of the inevitable perks that go with it, he has never left his wife Melinda.
Linda, as she prefers to be known, leads a quiet life and avoids the showbiz scene.
“Wherever I’ve been travelling all over the place, the road always leads back to Linda,” Jones says. “That’s where the title comes from.
“When we got married we were teenagers. She says to me sometimes, if I get a little loud, ‘Look I didn’t marry Tom Jones, I married Tommy Woodward,’ which is my last name, so I said, ‘Yeah, I know that.’ Because we’ve been together for 52 years now.”
Although he’s a frequent visitor to the UK – when we chat he is staying at his son and manager’s house outside London – Jones and his wife have called LA home for years.
The pair now live in a guarded estate off Mulholland Drive, but used to live in Bel Air, where tour buses were a frequent distraction, not that the good-natured Jones minded too much.
“When I first bought the house from Dean Martin, on the weekend I went out to get the mail and I’m there in a bloody robe and I’m looking at these letters and I hear, ‘Yoohoo!’ and I turn around and there’s all these people with these video cameras, but none of (the videos) ever surfaced!”
Jones has never let his success get to his head, and remembering his working class roots is “very important”.
“Maybe the most important,” he says. “The early years of any child’s life is so important and I was lucky to have a great childhood in Wales. I came from a big family of aunties and uncles and cousins, we all lived in the same town; it was a wonderful experience. I had a great start, and that’s carried me through.”
What did his coalminer father think of his singing son?
“We all sing in Wales, so he knew, but he didn’t know I was going to be so successful, so he was knocked out. Because I retired him.
“The financial side has been very important, so I could look after my family, which I always wanted to do, and fulfilment – I’m doing something, still, that I love to do and I’m getting paid for it.”
* 24 Hours is out on Friday. Tom Jones performs at A Day on the Green, Sirromet Wines, Mt Cotton, on February 28. Tickets on sale December 7 at www.ticketmaster.com.au (price includes album 24 Hours)
Welsh superstar Tom Jones will play four shows in New Zealand next year.
From 3 News New Zealand
Jones would bring more than 40 years’ worth of hits, including What’s New Pussycat?, It’s Not Unusual and She’s a Lady, to New Zealand in February ahead of 10 Australian shows.
Jones released his first single in 1964 and gained a legion of screaming, knickers-throwing female fans.
His career highlights included a BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, a Silver Clef Award for Lifetime Achievement and a knighthood in 2006.
His latest album, 24 Hours, was released last year.
Jones last visited New Zealand in 2008 but next year’s shows would be his first New Zealand tour in almost a decade.
He would be supported at his shows by Hello Sailor and The Lady Killers.
Tour dates:
February 21, Villa Maria Estate, Auckland
February 22, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
February 24, Town Hall, Dunedin
From The Mercury, Tasmania/by KANE YOUNG/November 29, 2009 08:16am
Tom Jones coming to Tassie
WOMEN, have your underwear at the ready — Welsh superstar Sir Tom Jones is set to perform in Launceston in March.
As part of his first Australian headline tour in 10 years, Jones will play at ‘A Day on the Green’ at Josef Chromy Wines at Relbia on Monday, March 8 — the Labour Day public holiday — supported by Australian soul star David Campbell and Melbourne singers the Wolfgramm Sisters.
One of the music world’s most loved, respected and celebrated stars, Jones has combined unique vocal power with a charismatic persona to remain hugely popular for more than four decades.
Jones has sold more than 100 million records and released hits like Kiss, Delilah and If I Only Knew.
Along the way Jones has been given a BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, won a Silver Clef Award for Lifetime Achievement, and been knighted by the Queen in 2006.
Tickets are $105-$199 (plus booking fee) and go on sale next Monday, December 7, from ticketmaster.com.au. Redline Coaches will run buses from Hobart and Burnie. Further information
