Tom Jones International

Don’t forget! You can now order the TomJonesInternational 2012 Fan Calendar! Just click the order form at right.

Not Good: This year’s crop of contenders to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are: Beastie Boys, The Cure, Donovan, Eric B. & Rakim, Guns ‘N Roses, Heart, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, Freddie King, Laura Nyro, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rufus with Chaka Khan, The Small Faces/The Faces, The Spinners, Donna Summer, War.

Note that Rod Stewart, the lead singer of the Faces, was inducted as an individual in 1994 and he may be inducted once again.

Good: As TJI was the first site to announce on back on July 31, Sir Tom will be among the performers when the terrific PBS series Great Performances showcases Hugh Laurie and his album Let Them Talk tomorrow night, September 30, on your local PBS station. It is usually shown at 9 pm, but check your local listings.

Now, for fun and laughs, three videos with Hugh Laurie.

First, in a promo for PBS, Hugh Laurie talks about his love affair with the blues.

Now, if you only know Hugh Laurie from the TV series House, you may be surprised to learn that he started out in comedy with his sketch partner, Stephen Fry. They were a smash in Britain. But Laurie’s love for America shows loud and clear in this performance from the TV show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Here he sings A Song For America.

Finally, a sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie. It’s self-explanatory and very silly. It’s called Your Name, Sir.

Don’t forget! You can now order the TomJonesInternational 2012 Fan Calendar! Just click the order form at right.

To all who begin to celebrate a new year this evening, L’Shana Tovah!

Since there’s no news, I decided to post Something silly: I love Turner Classic Movies and, the other day, I was watching a rerun of Dick Cavett’s interview with Groucho Marx. During the 1969 interview, Groucho talked about his favorite singers. First up? “Tom Jones.” He also mentioned Al Jolson, a great influence on Tom.

My favorite Groucho Marx moment happened years ago on the quiz show, You Bet Your Life. He asked a contestant how many children she had. “Ten,” she replied. Groucho quickly responded, “Lady, I love my cigar, but I take it out sometimes.”

Speaking of silly, here’s a video that has no rhyme, no reason and, no sense. So I thought I’d post it.

You can watch it here. (I think it proves that some people have too much time on their hands.)

Requests: Since so little is happening, if you have anything you’d like me to post — or, perhaps, something you’d like me to post again — please drop me a line and I’ll try to accommodate the request.

You can now order the TomJonesInternational 2012 Fan Calendar!

Full of photos you may not have ever seen before (because they were taken by fans) and with lots of info about Tom Jones’ career, the calendar is a treasure for any fan.

The calendar is 8.5 inches high and 11 inches wide. It has 28 pages, including covers and is printed on 100# gloss cover stock and 100# gloss text in full color. The back cover has photos of fans with Tom and, inside, are fan photos of Tom. It comes shrink-wrapped with a cardboard insert to hold it in place. The photos one must post online are low-resolution copies and the quality isn’t nearly as good as the finished product.

If you think you want a calendar for yourself or as a gift, order now because, honestly, the number of orders dictates the number printed. Counting on there being extras so you can order later is not an option. The number printed is the number sold, plus the free ones that go to people whose photos are chosen for the month pages and three or four “just in case.” I do work with a small “fan panel” that helps me when I have questions about photos, layout, etc.

The calendar costs $25 for orders going to the United States; $28 outside the United States. The price, of course, includes shipping and handling. This is same price as last year’s calendar.

Please be aware that the price is what it is because of the customized printing and postage costs. The annual calendar is the only time that site visitors are asked to pay for anything and most of what you pay is for printing and mailing. It is the only payment for all the time and energy put into TJI.com and I really, really appreciate your buying the calendars. Note, too, that they make excellent gifts and, if you think of it, please tell other fans about it.

To order use the link at top right. First — and very important — be sure to use the drop down menu just above the picture to choose the price based on your location (the location where the calendar will be mailed), click the picture and then just do what you do on PayPal. If you don’t use PayPal and need to send a check or money order, just email me using the “contact” link or the link just below.

You have a few weeks to order. I am hoping, barring any glitches, to mail the calendars out in early November.There is a minimum number of orders required before it can be printed. If that number isn’t met, all money will be refunded.

Remember, too, you can still send in your photos. Especially prized are pictures of Tom off stage, but any good quality photo taken by a fan is welcome to be considered for inclusion.

If you have any questions about ordering or photos, just email me.

Note: Not sure this will be the cover, if it changes I’ll change the picture.

Some News: A couple of weeks ago a friend emailed me that he’d seen Tom back in the USA at an airport in Los Angeles. I didn’t want to post that until I got confirmation. Well, today Kat sent me a tweet someone had posted: “Wow legendary singer Tom Jones @neimanmarcus in Beverly Hills. Very cool! Looks great.” (Neiman Marcus is a very high-end department store.) This is not what the journalist in me would call “confirmation,” but it a second independent sighting, so I hope it’s true and that it’s a solid indication that he’s getting ready to go back to doing his thing. Maybe the official website will be updated with some substantive news. Hasn’t been touched since August 31 and I know people are worried about Sir Tom.

Above is a cartoon that Pat kindly sent from the UK for all to share.

A while ago I posted a brief clip from the 1991 edition of Comic Relief in the UK and said I’d post the full bit when I got it off the VHS tape. Well, I still haven’t done it, but I did find a full version that makes the point of the exercise clear, even if the picture isn’t.

So, to see Lenny Henry and Tom Jones sing Can’t Get Enough of Your Love in 1991 at Comic Relief, click here to go to the TJI.com Video Library.

(Please be aware that the Tom Jones honoring Bernadette Peters, along with Mary Tyler Moore, Christopher Plummer, Lucie Arnaz and Joanne Woodward in Connecticut is not the Tom Jones who sings. Rather, this Tom Jones, along with his cowriter Harvey Schmidt writes plays and music. Among many other works, they wrote The Fantasticks.)

The photo at right is a screen shot of Tom singing a Barry Manilow (!) song on Coast To Coast, the dreaded Canadian series. It’s a terrific song and Tom does (no surprise) a terrific job. (Wonder if Muffy has seen this.) And, by the way, Mr. Manilow did not write it.

Click here for video of Tom singing I Write the Songs.

Yesterday TJI noted that It’s Not Unusual would be featured on the season opener of Glee. It was.

You can watch Darren Criss as Blaine sing it here. (Note: I apologize for the rotten quality of the video. I’ll try to replace it with a better one. But, even with the poor quality, you’ll get the idea. He does a credible job.)

Perhaps, between its use on American Idol and, now, on Glee, Fox should adopt It’s Not Unusual as its network anthem.

(And, if you comment, please know we all realize that you like Tom’s version better. But Darren Criss, the guy singing the song, is like the entire cast, very talented. No need to be negative. Thanks.)

If you are a Gleek be sure to watch Tuesday evening’s premiere episode of Glee to see Blaine, the lead Warbler, sing It’s Not Unusual. It’s getting a lot of press.

Call for fan photos of Tom & photos of fans with Tom! It is time for the 2012 TJI.com Fan Calendar. If you have a photo of Tom that you or someone you know took — not a professional photographer — and would like it included, please send a high-resolution copy (at least 300 dpi) to me. Be sure to include information on where/when/by whom it was taken. If your photo is chosen for one of the calendar pages, you will get a free calendar. Also, if you have a photo of yourself with Tom — a recent one or one from back in the day — that you’d like to see on the back cover of the calendar with other fan photos, please send that, too. It also must be at least 300 dpi. No free calendar, just the satisfaction of seeing your photo there. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Chris Hutchins was for a while Tom’s publicist. After he stopped working with Tom, he published a tell-all newspaper series that was highly embarrassing and personal. Tom and Gordon Mills lost a court action to prevent him from writing more. When he wrote this article for the April 6, 1968 issue of NME, Hutchins was on Tom’s payroll, a fact NME clearly didn’t think was worth mentioning. The story below is from New Musical Express (NME), the British music publication.

CAPTION FOR PHOTOS: When he went to see Tom Jones, Elvis wore a Carnaby Street-style dark blue jacket. For their meeting backstage afterwards Tom had changed from his stage suit into a brown polo-necked pullover and slacks. “This is ridiculous” commented Presley. “You look American and I look like something straight out of a London store.” With them is Priscilla, Elvis’ wife.

ELVIS LED STANDING OVATION FOR TOM!

A full and exciting account of the meeting of TOM JONES and ELVIS PRESLEY in Las Vegas recently by former NME News Editor and now publicist CHRIS HUTCHINS, who also reported the Beatles-Elvis meeting for NME.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA. — This town is still talking about the explosive night America’s most legendary pop singer, Elvis Presley, came to see the world’s new super star, Britain’s Tom Jones!

Presley didn’t sneak into a seat at the back of the room when the lights were down and slip away unnoticed at the end of the performance. He didn’t even happen to be in the area at the time.

He traveled nearly four hundred miles from Los Angeles, walked to a table directly in front of the stage before the show started and, when the lights were still up, reacted just like the rest of the audience at Tom’s explosive act and stood up at the end to lead the audience in a standing ovation.

For the entire story, click here to (more…)

There is no news from the Tom Jones camp and his website hasn’t been updated since August 31. So, I am choosing (and I hope you do, too) to believe that no news is good news. Tom is due to perform in the UK at the 2012 Olympics Gala on October 7 so, if not before, surely there’ll be some news then. One hopes.

In the quiet, I started thinking about Hot Country Nights, that CD I mentioned in the comment section of the post below. I decided to post some of my favorite tracks and the tracks that I find amusing. Notice that, unlike so much of the stuff from that show, these aren’t all disco-d up. Do you find it as difficult as I to believe that show was 30 years ago?

First up is the show theme song. Next he sings Willie Nelson’s On The Road Again. Now, listen to Tom sing Kris Kristofferson’s beautiful Help Me Make It Through The Night.

At the end of each show, Tom would read a poem. After the poem, there would be one more song and the the end theme during which the announcer would thank various sponsors. Here, the last song is Eddie Rabbit’s I Love A Rainy Night.

At the left is the cover of the September 19 issue of Globe, the sleaziest of the US’s sleazy supermarket tabloids. In the upper left corner is a headline: “Tom Jones HEART DRAMA! Shocking Secret He’s Hiding.”

The story on page 8 refers to him as “frail.” There’s a photo of him before he lost weight with a caption saying “Fit & Healthy.” Then, there’s a photo of him taken, it looks like, more recently, with the caption: “Today Pale & Thin. Tom Jones’ recen dramatic weight loss sparked fears he was suffering from serious health problems.

The story quotes “an insider” talking about how ill Tom is and a doctor, who admittedly is not treating Tom, on what “dehydration” is and how it can be dangerous.

Several people emailed me about this article and I am posting this to ask you to consider the source and think about the content when you see stories like this. An episode of dehydration can be extremely serious but this article threw together a lot of facts with a lot of supposition. Who, may we ask, is this “insider” who is quoted here? Why would anyone really talk to that rag when they could talk to a legitimate newspaper? And, having watched the career for quite awhile now, I’d venture to say that if there were to be any discussion of Tom’s condition, it would be with a British paper.

So, really, all we can do is hope that Sir Tom is recovering from his illness and is surrounded by people he loves in a place he loves. Let’s just ignore the baseless gossip.

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On Monday, September 12, music icon George Jones (right) celebrated his 80th birthday. He and Tom have one important thing in common. Or, I should say more precisely, one important person.

That person is songwriter Curly Putman who wrote many of country music’s standards. Among those are Green Green Grass of Home.

Putman also wrote what I believe is one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking songs ever. It was a hit for George Jones and Tom recorded it, too. He also sang it on stage, the last time being in 2008.

Click here to listen here to the haunting, classic version by George Jones. And click here to listen to Tom Jones perform the song live at the MGM Grand in 2008. (The live recording — which, by the way, I didn’t make — was from opening night on March 27, 2008, when TJI presented Tom with a commemorative card signed by many audience members congratulating him on the occasion of opening in Las Vegas for the 40th consecutive year. If he makes it back to the city before this December 31, it will be 43 consecutive years, a record surpassed only by Don Rickles.)

If you missed the post just below about 9/11, please take time to read it and watch the 60 Minutes video.

Sir Tom played Audley End on July 30 during his UK Tour. TJI has been very fortunate to get some terrific photos (like the one above) that will be considered for the 2012 TJI Fan Calendar (announcement coming soon).

The same person who sent the photos sent a 11+ minutes of excellent video. When you consider that it was shot from the audience, the picture and sound are excellent.

In the video you’ll hear Sir Tom sing Dixie Chicken, Chills and Fever(!) and Sex Bomb.

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

Enjoy!

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The star of the British version of Torchwood (that people in the USA can see on BBC America) is John Barroman. In addition to acting, Barrowman is a gifted singer, as you may have seen on The Graham Norton Show and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical casting series on BBC/BBC America and lots of TV, movie and West End shows. Barrowman has a new CD out called Tonight’s the Night and in a candid interview (one I have difficulty believing could ever be in the US press) he talks about his CD, his life and the music he loves. You can click here to read Torchwood’s John Barrowman: I love that Tom Jones sings from his crotch.

If you believe this post is out of place on this website, I can only say I’m sorry you feel that way. This is a site honoring someone who brings us joy and, in fact, someone who has helped many of this site’s visitors find comfort in times of tragedy or great sadness. Maybe 9/11 was one of those times for you.

It’s difficult to believe that 10 years have passed since that awful day in 2001. The almost-3,000 people who died that day in New York (and the many more who have died since then as a result of being there) came from dozens of countries and were of all races and religions, so it was everyone’s tragedy. But, as a New Yorker — privileged to grow up in that living, breathing, exciting and thriving city — who loves her native city as one might love another person, I cannot help but feel it was especially tragic for New York. Of course, the souls that were killed at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and those who died in that Shanksville, Pennsylvania, field are also deeply missed. What they must have gone through that day is unimaginable.

I am finding this day especially difficult because, after the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993, I worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the Twin Towers and came to know these buildings and many people who worked there. I cherish that time. It was — and, really, still is — inconceivable to me that anyone would destroy them that way. And as a resident of the metropolitan New York area I found that if you didn’t personally know someone who had perished, you knew someone who did have a loved one or friend who died. And, of course, you knew people who went to the site — dubbed “the pile” — to help in the days and months following 9/11.

But, New Yorkers and people all across the United States proved that they are resilient and we learned that together that we can weather any storm. It made us a nation proud of the strength and compassion of its people. We were also so pleased and moved by all the support other nations gave. It seemed for a (too short) while that we truly lived in one world.

Hopefully, today we will all pause and reflect and promise ourselves to practice tolerance, to teach it to our children and to never forget that September day 10 years ago.

DVR Alert: On Sunday’s edition of 60 Minutes on CBS there was be a story about a very special project — a story about the men and women who responded to Ground Zero. Some had to be there because of their jobs, others volunteered. But, still today, the memories are fresh, many wounds still open.

Dr. Benjamin Luft, MD, professor of medicine at Stony Brook University, is director of Long Island’s World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program. I worked at Stony Brook University where I met Dr. Luft and was very moved when, last year, he told me of his ambition, his dream, to assemble an oral history record of those who responded. The health issues of responders are still today, 10 years after the attacks, very real.

Dr. Luft and several responders were interviewed on 60 Minutes. It is well worth watching and you can do so here.

You can check out the project’s website.

You can also purchase the companion book by Dr. Luft, We’re Not Leaving: 9/11 Responders Tell Their Stories of Courage, Sacrifice, and Renewal You can click the link to buy it on amazon.com ($13.60). It is incredibly moving.

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As I planned this post I wanted to enhance it with music that would be suitable to commemorate this event. I believe the perfect choice is Amazing Grace. as performed by Tom on the BBC in 1971. I hope you’ll agree it is the right song.