Tom Jones International

Please don’t forget the TJI Question of the Month for January in the post below. We’ve gotten some great, interesting answers and would like to see yours, too!

Tom was among the guests on Jools Holland’s 17th Annual New Year’s Eve Hootenanny, broadcast last night on BBC2. Of course, the BBC player on which one can watch the show for a week is available only to people in the UK. So, thanks to Johan of the Tom Jones Collector’s Page we have Tom’s contribution to the show.

The program was taped before Christmas and there’s only one thing you’ve probably never heard Tom do before. He begins with Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics singing their recording of Mama Told Me Not To Come. Then there’s that other New Year’s Eve “standard” (along with Auld Lang Syne), The Midnight Hour, which was part of the Millennium Concert in Washington.

Next, Tom does his “he-says-it’s-new-but-it’s-really-not” acoustic version of Green Green Grass which is, if a man about to be executed can sing a “sweet” song, a sweet song.

Finally, the entire group of guests — you’ll see Boy George dressed in his leprechaun best — sings a terrific song adopted from a Negro spiritual that was very popular during the mid-20th century folk song movement. It’s called Down By the Riverside (Ain’t Gonna Study War No More), and is believed to have been adopted from the Book of Isaiah, “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore.” I like the song (but I do like lots of spirituals and folk music) and I think it’s a terrific goal for 2010 and beyond. Don’t you?

You can watch the slightly more than 14 minutes of video in the TJI.com Video Library. (Remember, with RealPlayer Downloader it is easily downloaded if you think it’s worth saving.)

Looking Back 10 Years: MTV Reported on the Millennium Concert, December 31, 1999 in Washington, DC, in which Tom took part after his NYC Javits Center show was cancelled. MTV’s focus was, mostly, on Slash, formerly of Guns N’ Roses. But Slash did make a friend that night. Click here to

We reached the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist at a Washington hotel bar, where he was lifting a few with Welsh swivel-hipped crooner Tom Jones. Slash told us that he and Jones had just met, and he added (with tongue in cheek, we believe) that they were getting along so well, they might just form a band. For those keeping track at home, Jones is also performing at the Millennium Gala event….The former Guns N’ Roses guitarist was originally scheduled to perform in an all-star rock band fronted by John Fogerty. After bonding with Tom Jones in the hotel bar prior to the show, however, Slash opted to play with the Welsh crooner instead. The leather-clad rocker missed out on Jones’ rendition of his ’60s hit It’s Not Unusual, but he joined the hip-swinging singer front and center for the Gala’s post-midnight finale. Sporting his traditional top hat, Slash joined Jones and other key Gala performers for workouts of the Wilson Pickett classic In The Midnight Hour, Bob Marley’s One Love, and a post-broadcast rendition of This Land Is Your Land, complete with a Hallelujah chorus.”They really got along great,” Maher said. “They definitely bonded.” The Gala, hosted by Will Smith and organized by Quincy Jones, featured a variety of musical styles, poetry, and commentary relating to the past century, all presented to a crowd of roughly 500,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial. There were other unusual pairings over the course of the evening, including Trisha Yearwood and Brian McKnight performing the 1968 protest song Abraham, Martin and John (made famous by Dion), Usher and Kris Kristofferson duetting on The Band’s hit The Weight, and Kathy Mattea and Luther Vandross teaming up for The Impressions’ classic “People Get Ready.” Other veterans performed their best known hits, including Fogerty offering up Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Proud Mary, Foreigner’s Lou Gramm and Mick Jones performing I Want to Know What Love Is, and Don McLean singing American Pie. A major highlight of the production saw U2′s Bono and the band’s producer, Daniel Lanois, perform an acoustic version of One, preceded by a moving speech on world unity. The Irish singer was introduced by President Clinton.