Tom Jones International

Question (And before you answer please read the last sentence below): In a discussion with a regular visitor to this site, the topic of whether or not there was too much posted on TJI came up. Later I’ll tell you why we were talking about this.

What do you think?

Please do not answer as a comment, but answer via email.

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In 1999 Tom played a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall (photo right), where he will return on November 17 to receive the Music Industry Trusts Award. Came across some video of that performance 11 years ago where he sings She’s A Woman and Green Green Grass of Home.

You can watch it in the TJI.com Video Library.

Fans of DeNiro, Stiller, Streisand, Keitel, Danner, (Owen) Wilson and Sir Tom Jones singing Give A Little Love will get a nice present on December 22 when Little Fockers is released (at least in the USA). The trailer was posted here last year but last night I saw it in the theater. What I hadn’t realized then was that much of the trailer, with the song playing on the soundtrack, is taken up with an issue of erectile dysfunction. (I would have written the accepted-in-the-USA shorthand, “ED,” but wasn’t sure everyone knows that.) Anyway, it may not be entirely tasteful, but it is funny. And, it does get the song heard. Maybe it’ll get some play?

If you missed it the first time, or just want to see it again, you can watch the trailer here.

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Surely the fans at TJI.com are joining Sir Tom in wishing a happy 75th birthday to Jerry Lee Lewis.

As noted in his recent interview on BBC Radio 4, Jerry Lee had a big influence on him and, apparently, no song Lewis recorded had a bigger influence than his huge 1957 hit — which you can watch him performing in 1957 — Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.

This was when Lewis was just starting to stand up as he played the piano, move to the music he was making and, generally, create mayhem. But, boy! Was he ever fun to watch. If you want proof, watch him perform in the Alan Freed biopic American Hot Wax or watch the story of his life, Great Balls of Fire, both terrific movies.

To see Sir Tom over the years with Lewis, check out this terrific video posted last year in the TJI Video Library. It’s called Tom and Jerry

Note: To watch Tom perform Burning Hell on Letterman last week, please do not give into the temptation to go to a website called “watchdavidletterman.com” that is posted elsewhere and that you may stumble across on youtube. I tried it on Thursday and found that, first, if the site visitor is on a Mac, the site visitor is barred. (Which, as it turns out, is fine.) If one is able to access the site with a PC, there is a “survey” and lots of stupid stuff to wade through before you get to any video and the quality is not real good. In addition, the person who accessed it at my request (I have a Mac) discovered all sorts of sales-mails the next day. So, stay away. I am surprised Letterman’s staff doesn’t close it down. Tom’s performance on Letterman last week is on youtube in excellent quality or you of course can watch it in the TJI Video Library.

Tom’s interview with Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4′s Desert Island Discs yesterday was interesting because of his choices of songs, possessions and a book to take with him. My only other comment about the substance of this interview is that, if your house, your “stuff,” your sibling and your spouse are in one location, isn’t it fair to say you do “live” there? And, in truth, Sir Tom told a few fans in 2008 that he “loves” living in California. So, whatever….

If you missed yesterday’s post, below, you can learn about the music. The photos I posted with the interview were gathered from UK news stories about it in the last couple of days.
If you want to hear the full interview, you can do so in the TJI.com Video Library.

Please forgive your moderator’s immodesty, but I am very proud of this post. Even though it’s very long and took a long time to put together, I enjoyed doing it, learned as I did so and I really hope you it and, perhaps, learn, too. — Ellen

Tom was on the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Picks. For some odd reason, it’s not available on the BBC iPlayer as most radio shows are. I believe I know why, but TJI will have it for you in a few days. Meanwhile, here are two of many articles — most emphasizing the salacious stuff — about his choices of records he’d take to a desert island and the songs themselves. There’s also a very interesting video that goes with one song that I am fairly positive you will not see on any other TJ website.

Tom Jones reveals REAL reason he loves rock and roll

Sep 26 2010 by Nathan Bevan, Wales On Sunday

SIR Tom Jones has revealed the real reason he loves rock and roll – because it helped him “have the pick of the girls come the Christmas works do”.

The legendary Valleys belter, now 70, used an interview for iconic Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs to confess his adulation for the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and how this shaped his notorious ladies man image.

“I remember hearing tracks like Whole Lotta Shakin’ drifting out of the record shop doorway as I walked through Pontypridd town centre as a kid,” said the singing sensation.

“I just went: ‘My God, what’s that?’ and that was it for me.

For the rest of this article and another, and to hear all of Sir Tom’s picks as well as a very unusual video, please click here to (more…)

As best as TJI could, there’s one video of all three of Sir Tom’s TV appearances in the USA last week. It amounts to 21 minutes on camera with a bit of Good Morning America where Tom sang the last several bars of It’s Not Unusual missing.

Also missing is his performance of Didn’t It Rain on that show. Trouble with the DVR, so I apologize.

Thanks also go to TJI’s favorite Tom Jones tribute artist, Steve McCoy, for his help.

Sometimes things get all mucked up (Notice, I said “Mucked!!”) and when that happens it’s good to have friends.

You can watch it in the TJI.com Video Library.

(By the way, did you notice in the photo that the time is 8:38 (a.m.) and the temperature in the autumn in Las Vegas is 80º? It’s still hot here; over 100º each day in this coming week.)

You know “Little Steven” Van Zandt, don’t you? He’s a member of the E Street Band (Springsteen’s band, that is) and was Silvio Dante on The Sopronos Well, he also created Outlaw Country, Sirius XM Radio Channel 63, as a “sanctuary for the freaks, misfits, outcasts, rebels and renegades of country music.”

Trillion Dollar Trio: The legendary Tom Jones joined Memphis piano man Jason D. Williams (right) and Texas honky-tonker Dale Watson and his Lone Stars at the SIRIUS XM studios in NYC on 9/21/10 with an impromptu performance of the rock & roll classic Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee.

I didn’t know the song but, just from listening, I guessed it was Jerry Lee Lewis’. And it was. He recorded it in 1973 and it charted at #41. The song was written by R&B guitarist Sticks McGhee, who adapted it from a chant he learned at Army boot camp during World War II. He recorded it in 1947, but it only became a hit when McGhee signed with Atlantic Records and recorded it again in 1949.

Now, if all goes according to plan — and we know what can happen to even the best plans, don’t we? — tomorrow TJI will have one video that has all four of Sir Tom’s TV appearances in New York City this week. Watch for it.

Meanwhile, you can hear the song here.

To read a review about Tom from a music blog and to be introduced to a tremendous music site that offers great smartphone apps, please click here to (more…)

The fifth season of 30 Rock, the wonderful sitcom starring Tina Fey (also the creator and the script writer of this episode) opened Thursday night on NBC with a shot of Liz Lemon (Fey) asleep. Her alarm gos off, clearly interrupting a dream. As she hits the alarm, she mutters with a smile playing on her lips, “No, Tom Jones! No!”

The profile of Sir Tom shot in the UK for CBS Sunday Morning will not be on this week. Stay tuned.

There was another stupid tabloid story Thursday in the Daily Mail a UK monument to journalistic integrity. I, for one, don’t care a bit about what they say. I wouldn’t even mention it if they hadn’t run a couple of photos taken of him after he did the Letterman show. Here’s one; You’ll find it full-size along with the other at the top of the TJI flickr set, Pap Shots. Check them out!

Tom’s appearance on Late Night With David Letterman last night was way too brief in the way that just about every US talk show appearance by just about every singer — no matter how famous — seems to ve today.

Of course, TJI has video of that but, to sweeten the pot, there are also two other videos posted with it.

The first is a very bad transfer from VHS tape featuring a very funny bit Tom did on Letterman when David Duchovny was also a guest. The second is Tom singing the Late Night anthem, It’s A Late Night World on Letterman’s 1989 seventh anniversary show. Third is Wednesday night’s appearance where Tom sang Burning Hell.

The first clip is really poor quality but it definitely shows what a good sport Tom Jones is and how he’s willing to poke fun at himself.

You can watch it in the TJI.com Video Library.

Tom was on Good Morning America Wednesday morning. There was a teaser about 20 minutes before he did his Praise and Blame promo that showed the tail end of a performance of It’s Not Unusual he did for the studio audience.

When he was introduced there was a brief interview by Robin Roberts (photo, right), who is clearly a fan. She, naturally, asked about the new album and then he sang. After Tom sang Strange Things there was another brief interview in which he said he’ll be in Canada today (he’s doing a private party) and then on to London, Russia and back to London.

He was on Late Night With David Letterman Wednesday night where the bandleader is Paul Schaffer who introduced Tom so beautifully at the Friar’s Club Applause Awards last year. TJI will have video in the next day or so. (Sorry for any delay, but as mentioned, I have this pesky deadline and have to depend upon others.)

You can watch the Good Morning Americaon-air interview, followed by the interview that took place backstage before he went on (Told you I’m in a rush!) in the TJI.com Video Library.

And, if you missed the GMA appearance in 2003 where Charlie, Diane, Robin and Tony joined Tom’s back-up singers in the last of the four songs he did — or if you saw it but would like to see it again — you’ll find it here.

Don’t forget! Tom on Good Morning America today, 7 to 9 am, ABC-TV and on the Late Show With David Letterman tonight, 11:35 (10:35 Central) on CBS!

And, in the department of “Small Things For Which To Be Grateful,” David Hasselhoff was the first celeb booted off Dancing With the Stars.

A — literally — 10-second interview with Sir Tom before the Help for Heroes Concert September 12 in the UK was sent today. Even in this short soundbite, his passion for the cause is very obvious. This photo is of him during the interview and you can listen here.

I posted the following paragraph yesterday and, while there wasn’t comment on it posted on TJI, I did get a few emails speculating that it is from a book about Sir Tom — a book I am writing.

For the record, while I am writing a book (and am on deadline for it) I am absolutely not writing about Tom Jones. Though I have been asked to write about Jones the Voice, this isn’t what this is. I was, instead, commissioned to write a book about an amazing not-for-profit organization here in Las Vegas. I’ll tell more when it’s published in December.

At any rate, here’s the paragraph (which certainly could be describing Tom Jones):

“The Voice…was simply working its spooky subliminal magic. Did it help that the [singer's] mouth was voluptuously beautiful, that his electric blue eyes were wide with fear and excitement, that he knowingly threw a little catch, a vulnerable vocal stutter, into his voice on the slow ballads? It helped. It whipped into a frenzy the visceral excitement that his sound had started. But the sound came first. There was nothing like it…The singer was a genius.”

To learn the identity of “The Voice” being described above, please click here to (more…)

Several people have emailed and called me with the news I’ve tried to ignore — the Dancing With The Stars premiere last night on ABC TV had two TJ songs on it. First, Bristol Palin (for the uninitiated, she’s the daughter of Sarah) dancing to the Tom Jones-Stereophonics version of Mama Told Me Not To Come which, she explained, is reflective of her relationship with Levi Johnston. Then, David Hasselhoff doing Sex Bomb. It was not, however, Tom’s version. It was apparently The Hoff’s own version. I do not ever watch the show as I believe it is one of those things that makes a viewer want to turn her eyes away. You can watch last night’s mess for yourself here. Then you can recover by reading the rest of this post. Don’t forget the brief paragraph from a book just below.

What do you think of this paragraph from a book about a singer everyone knows? “The Voice…was simply working its spooky subliminal magic. Did it help that the [singer's] mouth was voluptuously beautiful, that his electric blue eyes were wide with fear and excitement, that he knowingly threw a little catch, a vulnerable vocal stutter, into his voice on the slow ballads? It helped. It whipped into a frenzy the visceral excitement that his sound had started. But the sound came first. There was nothing like it…The singer was a genius.”

Tom Jones, Union Chapel, London
Divine show from Jones the Voice

Reviewed by Andy Gill / Tuesday, 21 September 2010 / The Independent

It’s probably the broadest audience of which I’ve been a member, in terms of ages and lifestyles, with the hardcore mumsy Jones fans down front – knickers tonight kept to themselves, this being a proper chapel and all – joined by the younger urban professionals who came on board through Tom’s revival during the last decade, and now an extra layer of musicologically intrigued observers like myself, who would never have dreamt of going to see Tom Jones in his showbiz pomp, but are fascinated by the recent raw exposure of his gospel and blues roots with the Praise & Blame album.

Just about the only subcultural group that isn’t represented here tonight are goths, which is ironic given that this may be the most gothic experience they might ever encounter – a man unearthing his soul in a church, bathed in a daring chiaroscuro composed of artful shafts of light and shadow. It’s a brilliantly lit performance that makes clever use of the Union Chapel’s features, with a row of tiny tea lights glimmering in sconces around the balcony, and the broad, bulbous space well fogged with dry-ice so that each song’s spectacular lighting choreography doesn’t just illuminate the singer, but animates the air itself, cutting the sepulchral atmosphere with seemingly solid beams that angels could dance along.
The show opens with the slow tattoo and desultory strum of Dylan’s What Good Am I?, the beat picked up by audience handclaps, swelling to cheers as the singer takes the stage, backlit in penumbral gloom in front of the pulpit. If anything, it’s a better delivery than that on the album, Jones negotiating the song’s unusual melodic shifts more smoothly as the ghostly hum of organ rises behind him. Then for the lolloping boogie Lord Help he’s caught in clear white spots against hellfire red, belting out the song with an easy power remarkable for a vocalist of his age, his body twitching lightly as the tempo picks up towards the end. With its astringent, snarling guitar riff and primitive pulse, it’s like The White Stripes or The Black Keys with a more commanding singer.

For the slower, hymn-like Did Trouble Me, the rear wall’s stained-glass rose window is dramatically lit up, a striking coup de théâtre that harks back to its original purpose. Harmonium wheezes through the opening section, before the tempo shifts up as banjo and tambourine bring a more revivalist tone. Then as the final chorus is reached, the stage is bathed in downward shafts of brilliant white light, as if God himself was smiling down on Tom. He – Tom, not God – takes a moment to explain the concept behind Praise & Blame being that if you’re willing to take the praise, you have to be prepared to take the blame sometimes, too. “Like people sometimes say, ‘Oh, Tommy’s got a lovely voice’,” he offers as an example, “‘…but isn’t he a naughty boy!’.” The light Welsh brogue, and the cheeky twinkle as he turns to take a sip of water, speak volumes about a career spent stroking audiences with his natural charm.

With his charisma and assurance, Tom Jones could lead a congregation of sinners easily to God – if he wasn’t such a naughty boy.

Photo of Tom at Union Chapel sent to TJI by a fan who was at the concert.