Tom Jones International

Tomorrow I will, hopefully, be posting the BBC 2 Elvis doc and planned something in that vein for today’s post but the event I went to Friday night changed that plan.

I attended the Canon USA gala to support the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children. Tonight was the dinner and auction at the Bellagio; tomorrow, the golf tournament. It is always a terrific evening and lots of terrific people, celebrities among them, attend to show their support. So, there were plenty of familiar faces from TV, movies, sports and — as you can see from this photo I took of Alice Cooper* — music, too. There was even an astronaut there.

The keynote speaker was John Walsh who North Americans know as the host of America’s Most Wanted, a TV show that only last week led to the capture of a man who had murdered four family members on Thanksgiving. Walsh started on this career after his son Adam was kidnapped and murdered in Florida in 1981. Canon provides film and video equipment to help police departments find missing children. Check the organization’s website at Missing Kids.com.

And, because Tom has always been generous in giving his time and talent, especially when the cause is children (photo at right), I decided today to simply once again post this video.

On November 17, 1997 this version of Lou Reed’s 1973 song A Perfect Day was recorded by many performers (in the style of We Are The World) to raise money for the BBC-backed charity Children In Need. It was subsequently released on Chrysalis Records

Among the many artists participating are Lou Reed, Bono, David Bowie, Suzanne Vega, Elton John, Boyzone, Heather Small, Emmylou Harris, Tammy Wynette, Dr. John, Robert Cray, Joan Armatrading, Laurie Anderson, Heather Small and, of course, Tom Jones. It was not done with all the singers together in one place. Don’t know where Tom was but Bono was in New York City.

This four-minute video was shot to promote the BBC’s support of live music. It featured the stars singing one line each, with Reed singing the first and last line.

To go with the video a CD was released containing the video version of the song as well as a male and female version of the song.

In 2000, the BBC show Music Live planned a mass sing-along of the song including performers and audiences from all over the UK. Estimates say close to 100,000 voices joined in. The demand in the UK was high for this to be released on CD, so the BBC went back into the archives and re-released the Perfect Day single, with two extra tracks. One is a video of the original ‘97 version of the song. The other extra track was the live recording. The proceeds of the re-release also went towards the BBC Children in Need Appeal, like the original had before it.

Tom comes on at the end of the video.

*I’ll be interviewing Alice Cooper soon, so if you have any questions, let me know. And, as usual, if you cannot view the video, please drop me note using the “Contact TJI” link at right and I’ll send it to you.