Tom Jones International

It is a cause for celebration! As you can see, Praise and Blame debuted on the UK charts today at #2. The BBC website had a story about Sir Tom’s hopes of being #1 being dashed — the first of many from every cheesy gossip/music/entertainment rag, one can safely bet — that they posted before the official unveiling of the chart on a weekly show. But, as the story noted, the CD is not #1 “at least for now.”

Remember, it was not Sir Tom or his management who prematurely claimed the top spot, it was journalists, record companies, chart-makers….etc. This debut on the charts is something to celebrate. It’s been a long time — too long — since we’ve seen this name on the music charts!

Yesterday, in Part Deux of Sir Tom’s interview with Bethan Elfyn (with Tom at left) on BBC Radio Wales, Sir Tom went over his essential, influential-to-his-music playlist. To many of his fans, his music choices are like great comfort food, bringing the listener the joy of good times remembered and good music heard once again. The link to the interview is at the bottom of this post.

In the interview, Sir Tom explains that, after his two weeks at the MGM Grand, he will spend the remaining four-and-a-half months of 2010 promoting Praise and Blame on TV, radio — wherever. It will be in many countries, many places. A friend of mine who books talent for a range of venues called me before the summer to tell me she’d been told by an agent that “Tom Jones is not accepting anything for the rest of the year.” She was very worried that there was something wrong. I am happy that I was correct when I assured her — based purely on intuition — that “No, nothing’s wrong, I’ll bet. He’s going to promote his new CD.”

The photo at right is of Sir Tom arriving at the Red Cross benefit in Monte Carlo, Monaco, Saturday evening. A link to more is also at the bottom of this story, just above the link to the radio interview.

I left several articles out of this post that could have been put in (if I lacked the respect or had a business partner who pushed for to include them). One is a “profile” from The Guardian. For a paper with such a fine reputation, it is a pretty appalling read — so many stupid errors that are testament to the laziness of the writer. In fact, I did something I rarely do — I wrote to the paper about it. Let’s see if there’s a correction. I’d offer a prize to everyone who catches all the mistakes, but that would be too many prizes. And, since I was writing to them, I noted that all the personal stuff that is not anyone’s business, the rumors and innuendos, etc. are unnecessary. Why cannot Sir Tom Jones, just once in his own country, be celebrated just for his voice?

In that vein, has anyone actually heard Tom Jones ask fans not to throw “knickers?” No one throws “knickers” today. If they’re throwing anything, they tend to throw thongs, scanties, undies…..just not “knickers.” There’s one chick who comes to Las Vegas from Florida and pelts Sir Tom with a large number of stuffed cats (not real ones, of course). He ignores them and, every night she’s there, she still throws them. It is obnoxious. The fans who pay attention don’t do this kind of thing and, I think, they actually look down on those who do it. But, Tom Jones asking for no knicker tossing? Hard to believe for, if there’s one thing you can count on, it is that he knows how to handle whatever occurs while he’s onstage.

For the article from Ireland, a very nice review, and links to photos and the radio interview, please click here to

It’s not unusual. . . Jones aims for Number One with ‘sick joke’ album

By Ian Burrell/Saturday July 31 2010/Irish Independent(© Independent News Service)

MY, my, my. Tom the Voice, at the age of 70, is set to return to No 1 in the British album charts with a record which was described as “some sick joke” by one of the executives on his own label.

When Jones first heard of the scathing email in which David Sharpe, vice-president at Island Records, demanded of colleagues that they “pull back this project immediately or get my money back”, he was said to be bristling with indignation.

“I’ve never met the fellow,” he said dismissively. Now, as he prepares to stand astride the hit parade once more, hips swinging and trousers tight, the Welsh warbler might consider toasting Mr Sharpe with one of his favourite vodka martinis.

Maybe it was all one big publicity stunt. Leaked to the press, the email ridiculed the gospel-influenced tone of Praise & Blame, which Jones has described as his “Johnny Cash album”, exploring themes of faith and redemption.

“What are you thinking when he went all spiritual?” snapped Mr Sharpe. Intrigued, thousands went to listen to, and indeed buy, a record that is vying with Eminem for top spot in tomorrow’s chart. Perhaps in years to come, schools of public relations will be citing the ‘sick joke’ routine as a prime example of a successful campaign, up there with the frenzy of support generated for the radio station BBC 6 Music by an apparent threat to close it down.

Gospel

It’s unlikely. The probable truth is that Mr Sharpe just didn’t get Tom Jones. He didn’t realise the authentic appeal of a singer who learned his chops in a Presbyterian chapel in Pontypridd singing songs such as Lord, Help the Poor and Needy by blues artist Jessie Mae Hemphill.

Nor that someone who would stay up late in his Las Vegas hotel suite with his friend Elvis Presley singing evangelist gospel songs such as The Old Rugged Cross might have an innate feel for John Lee Hooker’s Burning Hell. But the public saw the light, sure enough. Especially when Jones went on the penultimate edition of BBC1’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and performed that Hooker number with all the presence of an artist who was once a fixture at Caesars Palace and had his own networked show on ABC, performing duets with the likes of Little Richard and Ray Charles.

Jones found more believers at the arty Latitude Festival in Suffolk earlier this month where he caused crowd chaos by turning up at one of the smaller stages and performing Praise & Blame in its entirety. This would be Jones’s first number one album for 11 years, since Reload, a collection of cover duets mostly with young artists such as the Cardigans and Natalie Imbruglia.

In that sense, Praise & Blame is a comeback, though a very different one from his resurgence at the end of the 1980s when his son Mark became his manager and helped him to emerge from a period in which he had gone more than a decade without a British hit.

In 1988 he captured a new generation of admirers by recording Prince’s Kiss. Soon afterwards he was performing for a younger audience at the Glastonbury Festival and signing in 1993 to Interscope Records, the same label as Snoop Dogg.

It seems that Mr Sharpe was hoping for something with a contemporary feel after Island poached Jones from EMI in October last year for £1.5m (€1.8m). “Having lured him from EMI, the deal was that you would deliver a record of upbeat tracks along the lines of Sex Bomb and Mama Told Me (Not to Come),” But there has been great diversity in Jones’s 47-year career. He has had hit records in almost every genre, and even enjoyed a successful career as a country singer in America.

Arizona Republic/by Ed Masley – Jul. 30, 2010 02:24 PM

An album of deeply felt spiritual music from the face that launched a thousand panties? The man who once titled an album The Lead and How to Swing It? That Tom Jones?

Well, yeah.

And it’s actually kind of flawless, setting the tone with a haunted rendition of Bob Dylan’s poignant What Good Am I?, where, backed by thundering floor toms and plenty of atmosphere, he calls himself out on his personal shortcomings. Billy Joe Shaver’s soulful, self-incriminating country ballad, If I Give My Soul is just as heartfelt. And Ain’t No Grave sounds more defiant here than when an ailing Johnny Cash recorded it.

In fact, what’s most surprising is how frequently – and raucously – this album tears it up. The second track Lord Help is a swaggering blues-rock treasure. John Lee Hooker’s Burning Hell rocks even harder, channeling Led Zeppelin’s blue explosion with plenty of grit in the vocal department from Jones (whose voice, it should be noted, is a good three octaves lower than those Zeppelin records). And Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s rollicking Strange Things sounds like it could blow the top off a revival tent.

Despite the rocking, Praise & Blame is exactly the sort of album artists tend to turn to as the prospects of their own mortality start creeping up on them. And Jones, who recently turned 70, has done a more compelling job than most – thanks in part to Ethan Johns (of Kings of Leon fame), whose less-is-more production here can’t help but echo Cash’s late-period work with producer Rick Rubin. That Jones holds up to those comparisons says all you need to know about the artistry this often underrated vocal presence brings to the proceedings.