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 (more…)
